Taiwan | Pakistan

China on Sunday unveiled 10 new incentive measures for Taiwan, including easing tourist curbs, allowing in “healthy” television ​dramas and facilitating food sales, following a visit by the island’s opposition ‌leader. The move comes at the end of a trip to China by Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan’s largest opposition party. She met Chinese President Xi Jinping and talked about ​the need for peace and reconciliation. The 10 measures, unveiled by the official ​Xinhua news agency, “explore” the establishment of a regular communication mechanism between ⁠the KMT and China’s Communist Party, the full resumption of flights between the ​two sides and permission for individuals from Shanghai and Fujian province to visit Taiwan. A ​mechanism will be established to ease inspection standards for food and fishery products, but that has to be on the political foundation of “opposing Taiwan independence,” Xinhua said. Taiwanese TV dramas, documentaries and ​animation will be allowed to be shown as...

China’s President Xi Jinping met Taiwan’s opposition party leader Cheng Li-wun in Beijing on Friday, telling the visiting delegation he had “full confidence” that Taiwanese and Chinese people would be united. Kuomintang (KMT) chairwoman Cheng is the party’s first leader to visit China in a decade, but her trip has sparked debate in Taiwan with critics accusing her of being too pro-Beijing. China severed high-level contact with Taiwan in 2016 after Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidency and rejected Beijing’s claims that the self-ruled island is part of its territory. Xi told Cheng as the two met on Friday that “the general trend of compatriots on both sides of the Strait getting closer, edging nearer and becoming united will not change”. “This is an inevitable part of history. We have full confidence in this,” Xi said during the talks carried by Taiwanese media. He also said China was willing to strengthen dialogue with groups in Taiwan, including the KMT, on the “common pol...

Taiwan’s main opposition leader will make a rare trip to China on Tuesday, weeks before US President Donald Trump, with Beijing expected to use the visit to increase its influence over the democratic island. Cheng Li-wun, who will become the first sitting chairperson of the Kuomintang (KMT) to travel to China in a decade, said she wants to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to build cross-strait “peace”. Taiwanese officials and experts, however, say Xi sees an opportunity to reinforce Cheng’s standing in the KMT and stymie further US weapons sales to Taiwan. The KMT has long advocated for closer relations with China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and has threatened to use force to seize it. But Cheng, whose unexpected rise to the top of the KMT drew congratulations from Xi in October, has been accused by critics, including inside the party, of being too pro-China. Cheng’s visit comes as the United States — Taiwan’s most important security backer — intensifies pressure on Taiwanese opposition law...

Chinese leader Xi Jinping called on Wednesday for “mutual respect” in strengthening relations with the United States, warning President Donald Trump in a phone call to use “caution” when selling arms to Taiwan, Beijing’s state media reported. Xi expressed the hope that bilateral issues — amongst which trade figures highly — could be resolved amicably between the world’s two largest economies. “By tackling issues one by one and continuously building mutual trust, we can forge a right way for the two countries to get along,” Xi said, according to state broadcaster CCTV. “Let us make 2026 a year in which China and the United States, as two major countries, move toward mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation,” he added. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform following what he called an “excellent” call, said ties between the two countries were “extremely good”. “The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one, and we both realise h...

US President Donald Trump said “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the status quo, according to an interview the New York Times published on Thursday. “He (Xi) considers it to be a part of China, and that‘s up to him what he’s going to be doing,” Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. “But I‘ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he‘ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that.” Trump made the comments in the context of an exchange about what lessons Xi might take away from Trump‘s audacious military operation in Venezuela and the abduction of the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro. The Republican president said he did not view the situations as analogous because Taiwan did not pose the same type of threat to China that he has said the government of Maduro posed to the United States. He also repeated his belief that Xi would not make a move against Taiwan during his presidency, which end...

China launched missiles and deployed dozens of fighter aircraft and navy vessels around Taiwan on Tuesday for a second day of live-fire drills aimed at simulating a blockade of the self-ruled island’s key ports and assaults on maritime targets. Taipei, which slammed the two-day war games as “highly provocative and reckless”, claimed the manoeuvre failed to impose a blockade on the island. China claims Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and has refused to rule out military action to seize the island. AFP journalists in Pingtan, a Chinese island at the closest point to Taiwan’s main island, saw a volley of rockets blast into the air at around 9:00am (6am PKT) on Tuesday, leaving trails of white smoke. At least 10 were launched in quick succession, sending a booming sound reverberating across the sky and drawing tourists towards the seafront to snap photos and videos on their phones. Taiwanese authorities counted 27 rockets fired by Chinese forces on Tuesday. A Taiwanese Air Force Mirage 2000 fighter jet ...

China’s military moved army, naval, air force and artillery units around Taiwan on Monday for its “Justice Mission 2025” drills, as the island vowed to defend democracy and mobilised troops to rehearse repelling a potential Chinese attack. The Eastern Theatre Command announced the drills will involve live-fire exercises on Tuesday, in a statement containing a graphic demarcating five zones surrounding the island that will be under sea and air space restrictions for 10 hours from 8am (5am PKT). This marks China’s sixth major round of war games since 2022 after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the democratically governed island, and follows a rise in Chinese rhetoric over Beijing’s territorial claims after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo. The exercises began 11 days after the United States announced $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever weapons package for the island, drawing a prote...

China claims Taiwan and won’t rule out force, but the island says only its people can decide their future.

Cheng Li-wun elected new KMT leader as Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims amid tensions

Typhoon Ragasa, the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone this year, barreled towards tens of millions of people in southern China on Wednesday after killing 14 people in Taiwan, leaving scores missing and lashing Hong Kong with ferocious winds and heavy rains. Some 129 people are missing in Taiwan’s eastern Hualien county, after a barrier lake overflowed and sent a wall of water into a town, the Taiwan fire department said on Wednesday, with Ragasa’s outer rim having drenched the island since Monday. Many residents in the tourist town of Guangfu complained there was insufficient warning from Taiwan authorities, who are used to moving people out of potential danger zones swiftly on the island, which is frequently hit by typhoons. As rains inundated Taiwan, Hong Kong grappled with huge waves that crashed over areas of the Asian financial hub’s eastern and southern shoreline, breaking into white-water streams as they rushed along pavements and submerged some roads alongside residential properties. At the Fulle...