US-Taiwan Business Council chairman Paul Wolfowitz told a gathering of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei yesterday that he believed the administration of US President George W. Bush would recommence arms sales to Taiwan before Bush leaves office in January.
Wolfowitz, a close ally of Bush who served as US deputy secretary of defense from 2001 to 2005 and played a key role in the US invasion of Iraq, said he was confident the arms freeze would be lifted, as the US president had made a commitment in April 2001, and that Bush is “strong on commitments” and “treats commitments as commitments.”
“I believe that the packages will go forward and the US will keep its word,” he said.
Wolfowitz’s comments come against the backdrop of a halt in the processing of weapons sales to Taiwan this year ahead of Bush’s trip to the Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing on Aug. 8 and mixed messages from Washington about whether the freeze is official.
Commander of US forces in the Pacific Admiral Timothy Keating told the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington last Wednesday that the freeze was “administration policy,” while just two days later a State Department official refused to say there was such a policy.
Stressing that he was speaking as a “private citizen” throughout his 45-minute speech, the former World Bank president later questioned Keating’s authoritativeness on the subject, saying he was not a government spokesman.
Commenting on recent cross-strait developments, Wolfowitz said that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) three noes policy — no unification, no independence and no use of force — had made a big contribution to peace in the region and put things on the right path.
He said the reduction in tension and increased contact across the Strait would make it easier for Washington to have good relations with both Taiwan and China.
To improve perceptions of Taiwan in the US, Wolfowitz said it was important not to “focus on the past” and that Taiwan should try to increase visits by opinion makers such as academics and politicians.
People of influence with first-hand understanding of Taiwan would help the nation in its quest for increased international space, he said.
Praising Taiwan’s successful transition from dictatorship to democracy, Wolfowitz said that although he was a long-time friend of former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀), he disagreed with the theory that Asian people do not mind being told what to do by government.
He added that he had been heartened to hear that Chinese people had been “glued to their televisions” waiting for the results of Taiwan’s presidential election in March.
In the long term, he said, he was confident that Taiwan would have a bigger influence on China than vice versa.
The US-Taiwan Business Council is a non-profit organization established in 1976 to promote trade and business relations between Taiwan and the US and is very active in promoting defense-related trade.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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