Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Taiwan’s President Renews Call to Hold Firm Against Chinese Pressure

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats Bipartisianship

Comments: 0

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen kicked off her second term by doubling down on her strategy for boosting the island democracy’s ability to resist coercion from China, pledging to further revamp the economy, strengthen the military and deepen ties with friendly countries.

In her inaugural address on Wednesday, Ms. Tsai reiterated Taiwan’s rejection of China’s efforts to assimilate the island, which Beijing claims as its territory. But she offered to work with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to stabilize relations in ways that respect Taiwan’s democracy and sovereignty—conditions that China has previously rejected.

“Both sides have a duty to find a way to coexist over the long term and prevent the intensification of antagonism and differences,” Ms. Tsai said.

Ms. Tsai won re-election by a landslide in January on a pitch to defend Taiwan’s democracy by enlarging the island’s international presence and reducing its economic dependence on mainland China, its biggest trading partner.

Taiwan’s standout success in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic has bolstered the profile of the island of nearly 24 million people, a boon for Ms. Tsai’s agenda. Taiwanese authorities had reported 440 coronavirus infections and seven deaths as of Wednesday.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office rejected Ms. Tsai’s conditions for dialogue, saying she and her ruling party, which advocates a Taiwanese identity separate from China, have antagonized Beijing by refusing to acknowledge that Taiwan and the mainland are part of “one China.”

“We definitely won’t leave any space for separatist activities seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ in any form,” the office said in a statement responding to her speech.

The exchange underscores the fraught nature of ties between China and Taiwan, which have plunged to new depths in recent months as each side accused the other of exploiting the coronavirus pandemic for political gain.

In Taiwan, public resentment against China simmered as Ms. Tsai’s government complained about Beijing using its influence at the World Health Organization to exclude Taipei from the United Nations health agency’s annual policy-setting assembly and many of its technical meetings. Beijing has criticized Taipei’s efforts to participate in WHO activities as an attempt to assert independence.

Ms. Tsai’s speech indicates that she is content to maintain the current state of relations with Beijing while she focuses on her domestic and foreign-policy agenda, said Yen Chen-shen, an international-relations researcher at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

“She’s essentially trying to avoid creating new problems for Beijing and not give them any excuse for using force against Taiwan,” but she isn’t likely to make concessions to improve ties, Mr. Yen said.

Tensions have simmered since Ms. Tsai first took office in 2016, beating out her main rival from the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, which was advocating friendlier ties with China. Beijing sought to pressure her administration, sending warplanes and naval vessels to circle the island during military exercises, curbing Chinese travel to Taiwan, poaching Taipei’s diplomatic allies and curtailing the island’s participation in international organizations.

Such pressure seeded indignation among many Taiwanese—sentiment that helped Ms. Tsai secure a record tally of nearly 8.2 million votes during January’s presidential election.

Opinion polls suggested that Ms. Tsai’s victory stemmed in large part from widespread sympathies for anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong, which China governs under the “one country, two systems” framework of partial autonomy. The Communist Party has proposed using this framework to assimilate Taiwan.

“We will not accept the Beijing authorities’ use of ‘one country, two systems’ to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo,” Ms. Tsai said in her speech Wednesday.

The opposition Nationalist Party echoed Ms. Tsai’s rejection of the “one country, two systems” formula but blamed her for souring relations with Beijing. “In today’s speech, we also can’t see any future plans for rebuilding mutual trust across the Taiwan Strait,” Nationalist Party Chairman Johnny Chiang said.

In her address, Ms. Tsai committed to pursuing trade pacts and other cooperation with the U.S., Japan and European countries, while spurring industrial development in sectors like medical technology, cybersecurity and renewable energy.

She also said she would strengthen Taiwan’s defenses, including its ability to wage asymmetric warfare.

Ahead of Ms. Tsai’s speech, guests at the inauguration ceremony were shown congratulatory messages from Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and political dignitaries from friendly countries, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“The United States has long considered Taiwan a force for good in the world and a reliable partner,” Mr. Pompeo said in a statement, read aloud by a Taiwanese official. “I am confident that, with President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish.”

U.S. deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger separately contributed a video message, delivered in Mandarin, that was laced with thinly veiled snipes at China’s Communist leadership. “Taiwan has shown the world that the spirit of freedom and democracy aren’t just ‘American’ or ‘Western,’ but are also universal,” he said.

Mr. Pottinger made a pointed reference to Chinese astrophysicist and dissident Fang Lizhi, who was accused by the Communist Party of fanning a wave of student unrest in China that culminated in the 1989 pro-democracy protests on Tiananmen Square.

“Democracy, like physics, can’t be divided between ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ types,” Mr. Pottinger said, invoking what he said was a quotation from Mr. Fang about how he studied neither “Eastern physics” nor “Western physics,” but simply physics.

The U.S. messages drew derision from Beijing. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman accused Washington of having “seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs” and warned that Beijing would take “necessary countermeasures” in response.

Photo: President Tsai was inaugurated for a second term at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei on Wednesday. - TAIWAN PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE/REUTERS

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/taiwans-president-renews-call-to-hold-firm-against-chinese-pressure-11589977931?mod=world_major_1_pos2

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