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In New Year’s Speech, Taiwan President Warns China against ‘Military Adventurism'

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a rank conferral ceremony for military officials from the Army, Navy and Air Force, at the defense ministry in Taipei, Taiwan December 28, 2021. (Reuters)
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a rank conferral ceremony for military officials from the Army, Navy and Air Force, at the defense ministry in Taipei, Taiwan December 28, 2021. (Reuters)
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In New Year’s Speech, Taiwan President Warns China against ‘Military Adventurism'

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a rank conferral ceremony for military officials from the Army, Navy and Air Force, at the defense ministry in Taipei, Taiwan December 28, 2021. (Reuters)
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at a rank conferral ceremony for military officials from the Army, Navy and Air Force, at the defense ministry in Taipei, Taiwan December 28, 2021. (Reuters)

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen marked the new year with a message for China: military conflict is not the answer.

"We must remind the Beijing authorities to not misjudge the situation and to prevent the internal expansion of 'military adventurism'," Tsai said on Saturday in her New Year's speech broadcast live on Facebook.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has increased military and diplomatic pressure in the past two years to assert its sovereignty claims.

In Chinese President Xi Jinping's New Year address the day before, he said the complete unification of "the motherland" was an aspiration shared by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan says it is an independent country and has repeatedly vowed to defend its freedom and democracy.

"The military is definitely not an option for solving cross-strait disagreements. Military conflicts would impact economic stability," Tsai said. "Our two sides jointly shoulder the responsibility of maintaining regional peace and stability."

Taiwan's stance has always been "to not succumb when facing pressure and to not rashly advance when receiving support," Tsai said.

To ease tension in the region, both Taipei and Beijing must "work hard to take care of people's livelihoods and calm the hearts of the people" in order to find peaceful solutions to problems together, Tsai said.

Tsai also said Taiwan would continue to monitor the situation in Hong Kong, adding that interference in the recent legislative election and the arrests this week of senior staff at the pro-democracy media outlet Stand News "made people worry even more about human rights and freedom of speech in Hong Kong."

Steady governance is Taiwan's most important goal in 2022, Tsai said.

"We will hold fast to our sovereignty, uphold the values of freedom and democracy, defend territorial sovereignty and national security, and maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region."

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Trump Victory Expected to Boost Musk's Mars Dream

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
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Trump Victory Expected to Boost Musk's Mars Dream

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)

Elon Musk's dream of transporting humans to Mars will become a bigger national priority under the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, sources said, signaling big changes for NASA's moon program and a boost for Musk's SpaceX.

NASA's Artemis program, which aims to use SpaceX's Starship rocket to put humans on the moon as a proving ground for later Mars missions, is expected to focus more on the Red Planet under Trump and target uncrewed missions there this decade, according to four people familiar with Trump's burgeoning space policy agenda, according to Reuters.

Targeting Mars with spacecraft built for astronauts is not only more ambitious than focusing on the moon, but is also fraught with risk and potentially more expensive. Musk, who danced onstage at a Trump rally wearing an "Occupy Mars" T-shirt in October, spent $119 million on Trump's White House bid and has successfully elevated space policy at an unusual time in a presidential transition. In September, weeks after Musk endorsed Trump, the latter told reporters that the moon was a "launching pad" for his ultimate goal to reach Mars.

"At a minimum, we're going to get a more realistic Mars plan, you'll see Mars being set as an objective," said Doug Loverro, a space industry consultant who once led NASA's human exploration unit under Trump, who served as U.S. president from 2017 to 2021.

SpaceX, Musk and the Trump campaign did not immediately return requests for comment. A NASA spokeswoman said it "wouldn’t be appropriate to speculate on any changes with the new administration." Plans could still change, the sources added, as the Trump transition team takes shape in the coming weeks. Trump launched the Artemis program in 2019 during his first term and it was one of the few initiatives maintained under the administration of President Joe Biden. Trump space advisers want to revamp a program they will argue has languished in their absence, the sources said. Musk, who also owns electric-vehicle maker Tesla and brain-chip startup Neuralink, has made slashing government regulation and trimming down bureaucracy another core basis of his Trump support.

For space, the sources said, Musk's deregulation desires are likely to trigger changes at the Federal Aviation Administration's commercial space office, whose oversight of private rocket launches has frustrated Musk for slowing down SpaceX's Starship development.

The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NASA under Trump, the sources said, is likely to favor fixed-price space contracts that shift greater responsibility onto private companies and scale back over-budget programs that have strained the Artemis budget.

That could spell trouble for the only rocket NASA owns, the Space Launch System rocket (SLS), whose roughly $24 billion development since 2011 has been led by Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Cancelling the program, some say, would be difficult since it would cost thousands of jobs and leave the U.S. even more dependent on SpaceX.

Boeing and Northrop did not immediately return a request for comment.

Musk, whose predictions have sometimes proven overly ambitious, said in September that SpaceX will land Starship on Mars in 2026 and a crewed mission will follow in four years' time. Trump has said at campaign rallies that he has discussed these ideas with Musk.

Many industry experts see this timeline as improbable.

"Is it possible for Elon to put a Starship on the surface of Mars in a one-way mission by the end of Trump's term? Absolutely, he certainly could do that," said Scott Pace, the top space policy official during Trump's first term.

"Is that a manned mission on Mars? No," Pace added. "You have to walk before you run."