News
China’s Impact on Taiwan Elections & Russia’s Influence in U.S. Politics
(CTN News) – The Russian and Chinese governments will try to sway pivotal elections in 2024 using their political and economic clout. In Taiwan’s upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections on January 13, Beijing is attempting to thwart the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) dominance.
At the same time, Moscow is trying to bolster Donald Trump’s candidacy for president in the US election on November 5. Constitutional democracies have challenges when they respond to efforts by autocracies to influence their elections.
The Chinese Capital Is Trying to Influence Taiwan’s Election
An official from China has said that the Taiwan problem is at the “core of the core interests of China.” Making sure that William Lai, the DPP presidential candidate, loses the January 2024 election in Taiwan is one of Beijing’s top policy objectives.
Because of the DPP’s anti-authoritarian leanings, its promotion of Taiwanese language and identity, and the CCP’s belief that further DPP victories will lessen the likelihood of unification on Beijing’s terms, the CCP has strong misgivings of the DPP.
The DPP has long been hated by the CCP. In the run-up to the 2004 elections in Taiwan, the president of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Chen Shui-bian, caused a stir in Beijing and prompted the US to warn that it would not back a change in the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
After facing criticism from Washington, Chen weakened the referendum questions. However, due to the opposition’s boycott, the vote was never able to reach a quorum.
Although the DPP’s top officials have softened their stance and are no longer advocating for “de jure” independence, they are still extremely cautious of Beijing and back the current arrangement of “de facto” independence.
Although Beijing had already cut off all communication across the Taiwan Strait, President Tsai Ing-wen pledged in her 2016 inaugural address to remain a steadfast “guardian of peace” and to keep the lines of communication open between the two sides.
Tsai went on to state that she will “maintain both Taiwan’s democracy and the status quo of peace across the Taiwan Strait” in a next address she gave on the Republic of China’s National Day.
William Lai, who is currently serving as vice president and will succeed Tsai, has also pledged to keep the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
Even though DPP presidential candidate Lai made some unpleasant remarks in 2017 calling himself “a political worker who advocates Taiwan independence,” he has now toned down his stance on the matter.
“I will maintain the cross-strait status quo – which is in the best interests of both the Republic of China, as Taiwan is formally known and the international community.” Lai stated this plainly in an op-ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal on July 4.
However, the CCP is unsatisfied with the DPP’s measured stance on cross-strait ties because Beijing’s animosity stems from ideological and identity-based divisions rather than policy disagreements.
Despite Tsai’s support for the status quo and appeals for discussion, Beijing canceled cross-strait conversation on the day of Tsai’s inauguration and has yet to resume talks. In an effort to elevate alternative parties and candidates, Beijing is now showing its animosity toward the DPP by interfering with Taiwan’s forthcoming elections.
The level of election meddling from Beijing has varied from covert to outrageous. The Chinese capital is stepping up its social media misinformation tactics targeting the DPP.
The so-called trade barriers erected by Taiwan have been the subject of Beijing’s more overt “investigation,” which has limited trade with the island, lowered living conditions on Taiwan, and damaged the legitimacy of the DPP’s performance in the eyes of the voters.
By scheduling its conclusion for January 12, the day before Taiwan’s presidential election, China’s Commerce Ministry is subtly hinting at the politically charged nature of the inquiry.
The probe has substantial economic ramifications. Both the previous year and this one, 42% and 39% of Taiwan’s exports were to mainland China and Hong Kong, respectively.
According to statistics from the ROC Ministry of Finance, Taiwan’s exports to mainland China and Hong Kong had dropped 19% year-to-date to $139 billion as of November, bringing the share down to 35%.
The semiconductor industry in Taiwan has been hit hard by the trade tensions between China and the US, which is contributing to the decrease.
However, Lai and other DPP candidates are likely to have had their support eroded as a result of China’s trade sanctions, which have disproportionately hit traditional DPP constituencies.
The economic might of Beijing has helped to define the field for the presidential election and strengthen the anti-DPP faction. After Beijing initiated an inquiry into Terry Gou’s company, the millionaire creator of Foxconn, he decided to pull the plug on his extravagant presidential campaign.
The probe was reportedly launched due to worries that Gou’s candidacy may divide the anti-DPP vote and give Lai an advantage, according to Chinese official media sources.
Although it is difficult to verify, Beijing may have also tried to mediate a unity ticket between the two primary opponents of the DPP.
The appropriate or appropriate response to Beijing’s overt meddling in Taiwan’s elections remains unclear to Washington and Brussels.
It could be wise to publicly denounce the CCP’s involvement activities while subtly suggesting that their meddling in the elections could lead to the very result Beijing is trying to avoid and strengthen anti-CCP sentiment on the island.
Whatever happens, the election in Taiwan will have major but not existential consequences. The three main presidential contenders from the DPP, the KMT, and the Taiwan People’s Party all seem to share a dedication to the fundamental ideals of constitutional democracy, including upholding pluralism and the rule of law.
Furthermore, while they may express it differently, all three candidates are in favor of maintaining the current situation across the Taiwan Strait. Democracy in Taiwan will endure beyond the next presidential election, despite Beijing’s best efforts to meddle.
Moscow Is Using the U.S. Presidential Election to Try to Destroy Ukraine and Dismantle NATO
The world’s oldest democracy is in grave danger, despite the fact that the issues of electoral meddling in Taiwan are substantial but manageable. Because of Moscow’s complex efforts to meddle in American politics and the economy, the US is on the brink of a number of constitutional issues.
At this point in time, the odds favor Donald Trump, the former president, to succeed Barack Obama as president. In addition to being impeached for inciting rebellion, facing 91 felony charges, and suggesting he will be a “day one dictator,” he has also demanded the repeal of certain sections of the United States Constitution.
On top of that, Trump has hinted at leaving NATO, is bitter about being impeached in 2019 for allegedly blackmailing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and has made scary statements about ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine by the next day.
As a result, the Russian government will likely back Donald Trump’s bid for reelection for a third time. This is because they fear the anarchy that would ensue under his administration, the harm it would do to the United States’ alliance system and NATO, and the very real possibility that Trump would lead Russian forces to victory in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s knack for manipulating Western democracies’ election processes and his knowledge of how to use Russia’s meager resources to support his favorite candidates are on full display in his track record of electoral interference activities.
Nearly twenty years ago, in September 2005, Putin may have inaugurated a gas pipeline ten days before the German elections to bolster the candidacy of then-German Chancellor Gerard Schroder, thus influencing the outcome of the German election.
Putin has persisted in influencing Western political results, particularly in the US, by leveraging Russia’s oil resources. Prior to the 2016 US presidential election, Russia reduced crude oil production, which led to higher consumer prices.
In September 2018, Russia increased production in preparation for the US midterm elections. In October 2022, Russia and OPEC+ drastically reduced production. The decisions Putin made regarding oil production on each occasion were in line with Trump’s political goals.
In the run-up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Russia and other oil autocracies will almost certainly reduce output to help Trump’s campaign.
However, Beijing’s tolerance for, or ability to endure, volatility in the oil market is uncertain. As the biggest importer of crude oil, China stands to lose out in the short term if Putin continues to hit the global economy hard in the run-up to the US presidential election.
Moreover, considering all else being equal, international prices could rise if Trump were to reenter the White House and impose “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran and, perhaps, Venezuela in the medium term. This would exacerbate Beijing’s economic woes by increasing the country’s oil import bill.
Worst case scenario for Beijing: Trump’s tough new sanctions on Iran and Saudi Arabia might motivate either country to seek nuclear weapons, causing significant instability in a region where China imports half of its oil.
It is extremely doubtful that Beijing can manage the extremely volatile “triangle of doom” involving Trump, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, despite its more forceful diplomatic role in the region, which has involved mediating the restoration of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran.
Therefore, although both Moscow and Beijing want to see the Western alliance fractured, Russia wants to see Trump’s campaign bolstered, while China wants to see oil prices remain stable.
Governments with a strong hand in power are trying to influence elections, and they’re succeeding.
Both of the world’s most powerful autocracies are well-positioned to succeed in their interference activities. Even while the DPP seems to have a good chance of winning the presidency, the KMT will almost certainly end up with the majority in the legislature thanks to Beijing’s economic penalties and information attacks on Taiwan.
It also seems like the Kremlin’s backing of Trump will pay out, and maybe even more than that. At the very least, another tight election will do more harm to American democracy.
If the twice-impeached candidate were to become president, it would end NATO, weaken the Ukrainian war effort, and maybe even wipe out constitutional democracy as an alternative to Putin’s and his allies’ populist authoritarian nationalism.
The two capitals are using economic and, more crucially, informational weapons to undermine the electoral chances of their rivals and, in certain instances, bolster those of their chosen candidates.
Liberal democracies are faced with difficult choices in response to these authoritarian influence tactics. How can constitutional democracies let authoritarian regimes meddle in their elections and maybe even appoint their favorite candidates? What can they do in response to these attempts, if any?

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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