Taiwan's leader on Saturday appealed to her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to deescalate military tensions and live up to his promise to "never seek hegemony" after months of Beijing ramping up fighter jet incursions.In a speech on Taiwan's national day, President Tsai Ing-wen said the international community was becoming concerned about the "expanding hegemony" of China. Beijing views democratic, self-ruling Taiwan as its own territory and has never ren

China ramped up its rhetoric over Taiwan on Monday, describing any support for its independence as "doomed to fail", and threatened retaliation against United States (US) diplomatic visits to the island.Taiwan has been ruled separately from China since the end of a civil war in 1949, but Beijing considers the island part of its territory awaiting reunification.The island is a flashpoint with Washington, which promises military support to the elected government and has sent two envoy

A top United States (US) diplomat landed in Taiwan Thursday, the highest-ranking State Department official to visit in 40 years, in a further sign of Washington's willingness to defy China and its campaign to isolate the self-ruled island.Keith Krach, undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, is visiting to attend a memorial service for late president Lee Teng-hui on Saturday, the US State Department said.The trip, the second high-ranking US visit in as man

Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu urged the international community Wednesday to help defend his country and region against "expansionist" Chinese moves, saying Taipei feared Beijing would resort to force.Taiwan was "on the front-line defending democracies from being taken over by the communist China" and needed help from other countries, he told the France 24 TV station.Wu said China "has been intensifying its military threat against Taiwan" in recent yea

The confrontation between China and the West is escalating almost daily. The conflict is about technology, trade, global market share, and supply chains, but also about fundamental values. Underpinning this economic and ideological competition is the goal of global predominance in the 21st century. But why is the current escalation happening now? It is not as though the West suddenly had some epiphany about the implications of China’s rise.

Observers of United States (US)-China relations increasingly talk of a new cold war. On top of a long-running trade war, the two countries now find themselves in a destructive cycle of mutual sanctions, consulate closings, and increasingly bellicose official speeches. Efforts to decouple the US economy from China’s are underway as tensions mount in both, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. A cold war between the US and China would leave both countries and the world worse off.

China is trying to turn democratic Taiwan into another Hong Kong, the island's foreign minister warned Tuesday as he met with a senior US official making a historic diplomatic trip.A crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong has gathered pace since China imposed a sweeping security law on the financial hub in June, with opposition politicians disqualified and activists arrested.That has caused alarm in Taiwan, a self-ruled island of 23 million people that Beijing claims as its own territory and

A United States (US) cabinet member heaped praise on Taiwan's democracy and its success in battling the coronavirus as he met the island's leader on Monday during a historic visit that China has slammed as a threat to peace.Health Secretary Alex Azar is in Taipei for a three-day visit billed as the highest-level visit from the US since it switched diplomatic recognition from the island to China in 1979.His trip comes as relations between the United States and China are in tumult, wi

In retrospect, the decision by the Communist Party of China (CPC) to impose a new security law on Hong Kong seems to have been preordained. Historically, rising powers always try to expand their spheres of geopolitical influence once they pass a certain stage of economic development.

A rom-com about a lesbian flight attendant and a romance in a gay spa are among the shows featured on Asia's first LGBT-focused streaming service, which is pushing boundaries in an often highly conservative region. GagaOOLala brings more than 1,000 feature films, shorts, web series, and documentaries to people across Asia, where censorship and traditional attitudes mean there has been little in the way of gay content in the mainstream media. After launching in 2017 in T