Three US senators on Thursday last week called on US President Donald Trump to send a delegation to attend President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) second inauguration scheduled for May 20.
The move would be within the scope of the Taiwan Travel Act, which was signed into law by Trump on March 17, 2018. The act allows “officials at all levels of the United States government, including Cabinet-level national security officials, general officers and other executive branch officials, to travel to Taiwan to meet their Taiwanese counterparts.”
It is also not out of the ordinary for US officials to attend foreign inaugurations. For example, a delegation led by then-US secretary of energy Rick Perry on May 20 last year attended the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A Taiwanese delegation attended Trump’s inauguration in 2017, much to the dissatisfaction of China, which sent a delegation led by Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai (崔天凱).
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) on Friday last week said that the government would strengthen ties with the US during Tsai’s second term, and while such statements are routine, the state of US-China ties might signal new opportunities for Taiwan.
An article on the Web site of the US’ National Public Radio quoted Evan Medeiros — the US National Security Council’s senior director for Asian affairs under former US president Barack Obama — as saying that “right now, the US-China relationship is suffering from a deep deficit of trust.” While there has always been some distrust between the two countries, it has been exacerbated by an ongoing trade dispute and “significant strategic differences,” he was quoted as saying.
The US has also accused China of lacking transparency regarding COVID-19 and of failing to cooperate on combating its spread.
For its part, Beijing has slammed Washington for banning the entry of foreign nationals who were in or transited through China within 14 days prior to their arrival in the US, and for restricting the number of Chinese media personnel who could be stationed in the US. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) has accused the Trump administration of spreading fear and panic.
Given this, the US senators’ backing of Taiwan comes as no surprise, and they are not alone in expressing support. Canadian Conservative Party lawmakers on Feb. 16 challenged the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over its exclusion of Taiwan. Canadian lawmaker James Bezan expressed his feelings toward China and his frustration over Taiwan’s exclusion from the ICAO on Twitter, saying: “Has the International Civil Aviation Organization been taken over by the Communist Party of China? Hey @icao — get your facts straight! Taiwan is a thriving independent democracy.”
Prior to that, in a session of parliament on Jan. 29, Canadian lawmaker Michael Cooper called on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to explicitly state the government’s position on Taiwan’s inclusion in international discussions about preventing the spread of COVID-19. Trudeau responded that the Canadian government supported Taiwan’s participation.
Tsai has said that a large public inauguration might not take place due to disease-prevention efforts, and it is likely the public would be supportive of this decision. A small closed-door inauguration that is livestreamed and televised would be a fitting alternative, and would be much more effective if it is attended by a US delegation.
Tsai could take the initiative by inviting delegations from the US, Canada and other like-minded democratic nations who have expressed support for Taiwan. If such delegations participated, it would set a precedent and could signal an important shift in the nation’s foreign relations.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Delegation-level visits between the two countries have become an integral part of transformed relations between India and the US. Therefore, the visit by a bipartisan group of seven US lawmakers, led by US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul to India from June 16 to Thursday last week would have largely gone unnoticed in India and abroad. However, the US delegation’s four-day visit to India assumed huge importance this time, because of the meeting between the US lawmakers and the Dalai Lama. This in turn brings us to the focal question: How and to what extent