President Tsai Ing-wen completes her term in office.

Taiwan's steely leader rewrote the book on how to deal with China

In Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan found an unlikely champion. During her two terms, she carefully yet confidently reset the relationship with Beijing, which has claimed the independently governed island as its own for 75 years.

She stood up to an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping; she held on to a vital US alliance under Donald Trump and buttressed it under Joe Biden. At home, she expanded the island’s defence and legalised same-sex marriage, the latter a first for Asia...

...Tsai has her detractors. Beijing is no fan, and neither are the many older Taiwanese, who want better relations with China, where they have family and business interests. Domestically, she has been criticised for not doing enough for the economy – the rising cost of living, unaffordable housing and a lack of jobs cost her party young voters in January's election.

And her biggest critics fear that she has made the island of 23 million more, rather than less, unsafe...

I left out the cutesy comment about her cat in this excerpt. I visited Taiwan once for several days. I could hear BBC broadcasts almost wherever I went. Not exactly an unbiased source.

Kudos! A big FU from Okinawa's elected govenor to unelected imperial regent Rahm Emanuel, the worst @USAmbJapan in postwar history. "Okinawa governor decries U.S. ambassador visit to isles near Taiwan." https://t.co/2WJMhUHHBt

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) May 18, 2024

Why the US Navy is seeking help from Japan and S Korea in order to do naval build up to fight China: pic.twitter.com/5fW1tFWur0

— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) May 18, 2024

The US isn't even on the list. I saw a report elsewhere that Chinese shipbuilding capacity was 200x that of the US.

For new generation of Chinese artists, discontent is disobedience

The meteoric rise of Zhang Fangzhao with his hit song “Factory” highlights how many young people in China feel little hope of a better future

The author is a South Korean labor activist with an internationale ideological Marxist approach. I question his tactics if not his motivation. The byline is incorrect in my point of view. My studies of modern history and political science lead me to believe that this development in China is a classic example of the "revolution of rising expectations." It is the very appearance of massive development in China that is causing the dissatisfaction by overworked young people "forced" out of the countryside by economic conditions in an attempt to find opportunity in the cities. It seems to me this is an internal Chinese problem, although young people in South Korea have had similar experiences in the last several decades. Another aspect of this is the author's effort to marginalize "national identity" in favor of labor objectives shared in various East Asian marketplaces. He didn't comment on the Warner Group connection. Warner apparently produced the video.

I actually enjoyed the music video. Would the US allow a Chinese owned corporation to publish a video critical of social and economic conditions in the US on a major social media platform? Anyway good English subtitles on this-

源于乡土的呐喊，根植于心底的诉说。 河南说唱之神全新单曲《工厂》官方MV正式上线
A cry originating from the countryside, a statement rooted in the heart. The official MV for the new single "Factory" by the God of Henan Rap is officially launched