When asked to comment on reports that US President Donald Trump said he will impose a 100 percent tariff on imported goods such as semiconductors, and claimed TSMC will build world's largest wafer fabrication plant in Arizona backed with $300 billion, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, stated on Wednesday that when TSMC previously announced an additional $100 billion investment in the US, it sparked panic and public discontent in Taiwan; a $300 billion plan would further erode the island's economic vitality and autonomy. The DPP authorities are the biggest accomplice to the US in hollowing out Taiwan's industries.

The DPP authorities have ceded key industries to the US, concealed tariff talks and repeatedly misled the public, showing neither the will nor the ability to protect Taiwan's economy and people's welfare. They should reverse course, and the people of Taiwan should unite to defend their interests, said the spokesperson.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202508/1340743.shtml

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

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FICTION:

For many Americans, the defense of Taiwan is a potential flashpoint for a “great power” war between the United States and China, a conflict that decision-makers in Washington, D.C., see as all but inevitable. But that potential battlefield is still thousands of miles away while, for the 23.5 million people in Taiwan, the threat of an invasion can cast a shadow of fear and anxiety over daily life.

"Frankly, everyone has their own fears and imaginations about the war, but in our daily lives, many avoid it or even pretend it doesn’t exist,” Hsin-mei Cheng, former journalist and showrunner of "Zero Day," told CNN. “But as the crisis looms larger over the past two years, I think it’s about time we take a hard look at it and open this Pandora’s box. 

“For me, the war has already begun in Taiwan,” she added. “It is not being fought through guns and cannons, but through information and infiltration. It’s permeating our daily lives.”

The Chinese government considers Taiwan a breakaway province that will one day be reunited with mainland China, whether the people on the island want it or not. As Chinese military power grows, its shows of force and strength in the Taiwan Strait have become bolder and more frequent, even as the United States continues to guarantee the island’s security.

Each of “Zero Day’s” 10 episodes depicts an independent aspect of Taiwanese life affected by the fictionalized invasion, as they experience a countdown to the day Chinese troops land on Taiwan’s shores. Hsin-mei Cheng gathered a team of experienced directors to create the series while raising money from wealthy, pro-independence investors and the country’s Ministry of Culture.

The countdown begins after a PLA aircraft “disappears” in the Taiwan Strait in what looks to the Taiwanese leadership like a dreamed-up pretext for China to deploy ships and aircraft to the area. China shuts down the area for what appears to be a staged search-and-rescue mission. It ends with a Chinese military force landing on the Taiwanese island of Kinmen and preparing to make an initial assault. The pre-invasion salvo of misinformation depicted in “Zero Day” includes tactics that only recently became a deep concern for world leaders, such as the deployment of AI-generated deep fakes of Taiwan’s president to lull the population into surrendering.

https://www.military.com/off-duty/television/2024/08/08/zero-day-new-10-part-series-imagines-what-chinese-invasion-of-taiwan-might-actually-look.html