A strong US-Taiwan relationship need not compete with the recently warming links between Taiwan and China, but can rather complement the process by providing Taiwan with the confidence to explore better relations with Beijing, outgoing American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Stephen Young said yesterday at a US national day reception in Taipei.
Young quoted former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), saying: “It doesn’t matter where you come from, so long as you love Taiwan, you are a new Taiwanese.”
Young said by definition he considers himself a “New Taiwanese Man” and he lauded the “civility” and “kindness” of Taiwanese that he has experienced during his years in Taiwan.
PHOTO: CNA
“I think of Taiwan’s further maturation as a democracy is best exemplified by the free and fair election held last year. The verdict of which was calmly accepted by all the major political parties,” he said, adding US-Taiwan ties in all realms will deepen in the future.
His replacement William Stanton is an experienced diplomat and “accomplished China hand,” Young said, adding that he was confident that he was leaving Taipei and the AIT in “very capable hands.”
Young spent part of his childhood in Taiwan and later returned to study Chinese as part of the US Foreign Service program.
As a diplomat, he has been stationed in Taiwan three times. An avid climber and cyclist, Young has traveled extensively around the country and said the beauty of the island was one of the things his family would miss about Taiwan.
In his address to the reception, Premier Liu Chao-hsiuan (劉兆玄) accidentally made the US 2,000 years older by congratulating Washington on its “2,333rd” birthday.
Young was scheduled to leave Taiwan today. Stanton, now the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Seoul, is scheduled to arrive next month.
Young will leave his post after failing to convince Taiwan to lift the ban on US bone-in beef from cattle older than 30 months of age, which he has worked hard for during his three-year tenure as AIT director. One of his legacies will be the mountainside plot in Neihu, which will be AIT’s future home.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS