A senior State Department official has notified the Taipei Times that he will no longer speak to the newspaper's Washington correspondent in retaliation for a Times editorial on Monday which called Powell a "sorry wreck of a once principled man."
This reporter received a call on Monday from Randall Schriver, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in charge of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong affairs, complaining about the editorial and saying that he would no longer speak to the newspaper because of it.
Schriver said that the administration does not take issue with newspapers that disagree with the administration's policy, but he said the description of Powell went too far.
It was not clear whether Schriver was speaking for himself or for the administration.
The Bush administration has come under periodic criticism for its hostility to news media -- mainly in the Middle East --
that criticize US policy.
Telephone calls to Schriver and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were not returned on Monday evening.
Schriver and Armitage are expected to leave the administration shortly, following Powell into the private sector.
Armitage is expected to return to his former political consultancy, and Schriver is widely reported to be planning to rejoin Armitage's firm, where he was employed before joining the Department of Defense during the Clinton administration.
When Powell picked Armitage as his deputy, Armitage tapped Schriver to be his chief of staff.
Later, Schriver assumed his present position.
Conservative supporters of Taiwan have been suspicious of Schriver, citing his time in the Pentagon during the Clinton administration.
Charles Snyder is the Taipei Times' Washington correspondent.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to