Beijing pushes ‘one China’ upon Seoul, source saysBy Chen Yun / Staff reporterNational security intelligence suggested China has set out four prerequisites and four corresponding commitments for a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, including requiring Seoul to publicly reiterate the “one China” principle, sources said on Saturday. Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung before their meeting at the Gyeongju National Museum in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Nov. 1 last year. China also has been testing the US’ resolve in maintaining Indo-Pacific security following the publication of Washington’s National Security Strategy, they said. Corresponding to its four prerequisites, China would offer four commitments, including removing sanctions against the Hanwha Group’s subsidiaries, and lifting the “Korean culture ban” to allow South Korean entertainers to perform in China, the source said. Under the “CRINK” framework (referring to the alignment of autocracies China, Russia, Iran and North Korea), intensified unrest has broken out across Iran, the source said.

Gasoline, diesel prices to fall by NT$0.2 per literBy Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporterGasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, after international crude oil prices fluctuated within a narrow range last week amid a mixed bag of positive and negative factors, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.6, NT$28.1 and NT$30.1 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$25 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.8 at Formosa pumps, they said. Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — last week gained 0.85 percent to settle at US$60.75 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures — the US oil benchmark — increased 1.02 percent to US$57.32 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

China’s BYD Co poised to overtake Tesla in EV salesPOTENTIAL demand: Tesla’s chance of reclaiming its leadership in EVs seems uncertain, but breakthrough in full self-driving could help boost sales, an analyst said Chinese auto giant BYD Co (比亞迪) is poised to surpass Tesla Inc as the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) company in annual sales. The two groups are expected to soon publish their final figures for this year, and based on sales data so far this year, there is almost no chance the US company led by CEO Elon Musk would retain its leadership position. As of the end of last month, BYD, which also produces hybrid vehicles, had sold 2.07 million EVs. Tesla, for its part, had sold 1.22 million by the end of September. Tesla’s September figures included a one-time boost in

TSMC’s ADRs reach record US$1.657tn, becoming sixth-largest market cap firmBy Chen Cheng-hui / Staff reporterThe value of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) American depositary receipts (ADRs) reached a historic high on Friday, after the leading contract chipmaker’s Taipei-listed shares continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Photo: BloombergNvidia remained the world’s largest stock, with a market cap of US$4.597 trillion on Friday, ahead of Apple Inc at US$4.021 trillion. Alphabet Inc ranked third with a market value of US$3.806 trillion, followed by Microsoft Corp at US$3.515 trillion and Amazon.com Inc at US$2.421 trillion, CompaniesMarketCap’s data showed. TSMC’s Taipei-listed shares hit a new high of NT$1,585 on Friday, lifting its market value to NT$41.1 trillion (US$1.31) last week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data indicated. Aletheia Capital also raised price targets for TSMC’s Taipei-listed shares from NT$2,100 to NT$2,400 and its ADRs from US$450 to US$500, the note said.

A new horror for a new technology: Social dependency on an AIThere are steps people can take to avoid falling into a dependency on a non-sentient chatbotBy Parmy Olson / Bloomberg OpinionAmelia Miller has an unusual business card. For all our fears of AI, the most popular new tools are more customizable than social media ever was. Doing that with technology means that over time, people resist the basic social exchanges that are needed to make deeper connections. Configure ChatGPT to be direct and seek advice from real people rather than an AI model that validates all ideas. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World.

Trump blocks chips deal, citing security concernsReuters, WASHINGTONUS President Donald Trump on Friday blocked US photonics firm HieFo Corp’s US$3 million acquisition of assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp, citing national security and China-related concerns. Photo: Reuters“The Transaction is hereby prohibited,” Trump said, ordering HieFo to “divest all interests and rights in the Emcore Assets, wherever located,” within 180 days. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) identified a national security risk in its investigation of the deal, the US Department of the Treasury said after Trump’s order. The statement did not specify the national security risk. Emcore, publicly traded at the time of the deal and later taken private, said HieFo bought its chips business and indium-phosphide wafer-fabrication operations for US$2.92 million.

The UN dubbed 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Quantum technology taps the odd mechanics of quantum physics — how particles behave at the atomic level — to create computers, sensors and communications gear that are exponentially more powerful than today’s. Classic computers process information in bits, which can be represented as “0” or “1.” Quantum computers use qubits, which can exist in a superposition of both states at the same time. Quantum technology could transform sectors from medicine to finance. At the start of the year, Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said that we are about 15 to 30 years away from quantum computers being very useful.

Oil market might absorb Maduro shockTAKE IN STRIDE: The disruption is manageable and there is significant oil oversupply due to seasonally weak demand and OPEC+ production increases, a top analyst saidBloombergWhile the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro following US airstrikes marked a seismic geopolitical development, early signals suggested that the global oil market would largely take the move in its stride. US President Donald Trump on Saturday said that sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry would remain in place and US oil companies would help rebuild infrastructure and revive output. “We continue to operate in full compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.”Maduro’s capture raised speculation over the fate of the Venezuelan oil industry in the longer term. Trump said that US companies would spend billions of dollars to rebuild the Venezuelan oil sector and sell a “large amount” of oil to global buyers, including current customers and new ones. It was not immediately clear which oil companies he was referring to and he did not specify how soon they would be able to begin production.

Richard D. Fisher, Jr. On Taiwan: 2026: The Year To Lose Our Fear Of ChinaThis should be the year in which the democracies, especially those in East Asia, lose their fear of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China principle” plus its nuclear “Cognitive Warfare” coercion strategies, all designed to achieve hegemony without fighting. CCP fury and coercive actions against Japan included:‧ Chinese Osaka Consul General Xue Jian’s (薛劍) Nov. 8 statement on the “X” platform to “cut off that filthy head” of Takaichi. A Dec. 23 Yomiuri Shimbun poll reflected strong Japanese public support, a 73 percent approval rating for Takaichi’s government. Japan should purchase another 40 F-35Bs for stationing on the Sakashimas and the US should accelerate development of the 800-1,000km range Lockheed Martin PrSM anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that should be deployed to the Ryukyus and sold to Taiwan. Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.

Silent and compliant does not equal ‘good’ByY. He was, by all accounts, a “good student”: obedient, civic-minded, helpful and the recipient of more than 20 commendations. We praise the student who does not cause trouble, who gets good grades and who “interacts harmoniously.” We assume that silence equals stability. When he fell out of the structured loops of school and military service, becoming unemployed and estranged from his family, the “good student” identity collapsed, leaving a vacuum that only a violent narrative could fill. To stop the next Chang Wen, we cannot just look for weapons; we must look for the “good students” who are disappearing into the silence they were taught to keep.

Notes from Central Taiwan: Dereliction of duty: 2025 in reviewTackling chronic gangsterism, boosting the birthrate, raising taxes on the wealthy — a look at the policies that should have been implemented, but weren’tBy Michael Turton / Contributing ReporterIt’s a good thing that 2025 is over. Photo: Lo Pei-derDEMOGRAPHIC SUICIDEInstead, Taiwan is now committed to demographic suicide in order to preserve its current political economy. Taiwan still has no real policy to promote foreign adventure tourism to take advantage of its magnificent mountains and seascapes. No trade-off of Europe for more investment and visibility in Asia and especially in defense of Taiwan. Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country.

The drill was China’s seventh major military drill targeting Taiwan since August 2022. However, TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) doubted the nation’s self-defense capability, questioning whether its indigenous submarines are functional. They instead passed resolutions condemning Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and requesting that National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) step down. The KMT’s and the opposition parties’ statements not only send a confusing message to the world, but signal to Beijing that its cognitive warfare is working. The TPP’s conflicting words and decisions, and the KMT’s statement and actions are playing into the PLA’s “three warfares” strategy.

The investment frenzy over AI played a key role in driving Asian stocks’ outperformance versus their global peers last year. While some see Asia a better venue for AI exposure given cheaper valuations, others point to the more pronounced risk of concentration of a few major tech firms in markets such as Taiwan and South Korea. Traditional dancers perform beneath inflatable figures during a ceremony celebrating the new year’s opening of the South Korea stock market at the Korea Exchange in Seoul on Friday last week. Photo: AFP“We’re calling more of an AI fatigue as opposed to a bubble,” Eastspring Investments (Hong Kong) Ltd equity portfolio specialist Ken Wong (黃嘉權) said. If there is a pullback in overall AI capital expenditure or earnings trajectory starts to deteriorate, there would be some risks, he said.

The world order after 2025By Yuen Yuen AngFor a mathematician, 2025 might stand out for being a “perfect square”: 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. Its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance — it marks the year the postwar global order expired and a new one was about to be born. Eighty years ago, as the world emerged from World War II, the victorious Western allies designed a system intended to prevent another catastrophic conflict. Some contours of the new world order — three in particular — are already visible. We have a chance to do better: to build a more plural, more equal and more ecologically grounded world order.

Chinese cyberattacks rising: NSB reportUNRELENTING: China attempted cyberattacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure 2.63 million times per day last year, up from 1.23 million in 2023, the NSB saidBy Huang Ching-hsuan and Fion Khan / Staff reporter, with staff writerChina’s cyberarmy has long engaged in cyberattacks against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, employing diverse and evolving tactics, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said yesterday, adding that cyberattacks on critical energy infrastructure last year increased 10-fold compared with the previous year. The NSB yesterday released a report titled Analysis on China’s Cyber Threats to Taiwan’s Critical Infrastructure in 2025, outlining the number of cyberattacks, major tactics and hacker groups. A bar chart shows the growth of Chinese cyberattacks against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure in nine sectors last year. A pie chart shows the distribution of Chinese hacking tactics against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure last year. This approach intends to delay or paralyze Taiwan’s critical infrastructure’s services, and therefore impact Taiwanese’s daily lives, it added.