Taiwan watches as Trump turns on Ukraine
Taiwan could be forced to consider its political future as President Trump turns against Ukraine and abandons Western efforts to punish Russia. Ukraine and Taiwan share a kinship: small democracies laid claim to by hulking, authoritarian neighbors.
President Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s president, has already been trying to prevent any serious breach with Trump. This month, he announced that the country would increase military spending. He also said the island — which has more semiconductor fabrication plants than any other place in the world — would come up with proposals in response to Trump’s demand that more such plants be built in the U.S.
As China continues to send fighter jets and warships nearly every day to probe Taiwan’s defenses, the island’s ability to deter a potential attack hinges on whether the U.S. stands ready to help and even send forces.
Diplomacy: Trump doesn’t appear to have a strong commitment to Taiwanese democracy. Some fear he might put Taiwan’s interests at risk if he negotiates a big trade deal with Beijing. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has told Trump that Taiwan is a key concern in their relationship.
Britain said it would increase military spending
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said yesterday that Britain would significantly raise its military spending by 2027. The increase was intended to send a powerful signal about burden sharing to Trump ahead of their meeting at the White House tomorrow.
The increase would amount to a spending rise of 13.4 billion pounds per year on defense, and would be paid for by scaling back on overseas development aid. Starmer said he regretted the cuts, but he presented them as a temporary measure because of the challenging new security environment.
Context: Trump’s recent statements about Ukraine have reinforced fears that the U.S. is retreating from its decades-long commitment to Europe’s defense. NATO’s secretary general also recently called on members to spend “considerably more” than 3 percent of economic output on defense.
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Syria’s new leader called for national unity
Ahmed al-Shara, Syria’s interim president, called for unity yesterday during a two-day conference in Damascus meant to chart the country’s future after decades of dictatorship. The gathering brought together hundreds of people from Syria’s many religious sects and ethnic groups, as well as journalists, community leaders and activists.
But one major player was absent: The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.-backed militia that controls much of Syria’s northeast. The current government had told the group that it would have to disarm and join a unified national military before it could attend the dialogue.
The majority of the books nominated for this year’s International Booker Prize are under 200 pages long. This isn’t because of some “much-prophesied loss of attention span,” as the chair of the judging panel put it. The 13 nominees, he said, were simply the best and “don’t have a wasted word.” Check out the full list.
Lives lived: Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who leaped onto President John F. Kennedy’s limousine as it came under fire in 1963, died at 93.
100 years later, this thing is still on
A century ago this week, the musician Art Gillham entered a studio in New York to test a soon-to-be-transformative tool: the microphone. That was the moment when the record industry left the acoustic era and went electric.
The effects were felt across genres and styles. Instruments could be reproduced more faithfully. Standup basses were no longer outperformed by blaring horns. But the biggest beneficiaries were pop singers — microphones gave them personality, like Hollywood stars.
