Despite the fact that time is running short, the Presidential Office said yesterday there was still a chance the White House would send the arms package bill to Congress before its session ends tomorrow.
An official at the Presidential Office, who asked to remain anonymous, said the seven items included in the arms procurement package Taiwan has requested from Washington have obtained the support of the US Department of Defense. The defense department has sent it to the Department of State, pending the approval of Congress, the officials said.
While prospects for the sales to get through the necessary congressional notification process looked dim, the official said it was not too late if the package could make it to Congress in time.
The official made the remarks in response to a front-page story in the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday that said the National Security Council and its representative office in the US had provided President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) with overly optimistic information that led him to “misjudge” the situation.
Ma said earlier this month that all signs showed that the White House would soon ask Congress to complete the procedures for the seven items requested by Taipei.
The report said the US Department of State told Taiwanese reporters in Washington on Friday they had notified Congress of arms sales to France, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The interagency process for the arms sales to Taiwan, however, had yet to be decided on, the report said.
On Friday, the Taipei Times reported that the prospects of the sales getting through the congressional notification process this year appeared to have died on Friday, which was to have been the final day of the two-year 110th Congress’ term.
Moreover, prospects for a lengthy “lame duck” session after November’s elections that might have allowed the process to continue seemed to have faded after the House on Wednesday approved a stop-gap bill to finance government operations through March.
The year-long freeze has halted progress on US$11 billion to US$12 billion in arms sales that the Bush administration had approved in April 2001.
Members of Congress have castigated the Bush administration for the decision, saying it violates the Taiwan Relations Act pledge to sell Taipei defensive weapons and blaming the administration of trying to curry favor with Beijing at Taiwan’s expense.
The House of Representatives has approved a bill requiring the Bush administration to level with Congress on arms sales to Taiwan. The bill is seen as a strong endorsement of ending the year-long freeze imposed by the White House.
In letters to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman sent on Tuesday, the Department of State and the Department of Justice criticized a bill approved by the US House of Representatives last week aimed at prodding the administration into ending its freeze on arms sales to Taiwan. The letter said the bill would impose unconstitutional requirements on the executive branch and harm the president’s foreign policy-making authority.
The State Department said “the administration currently is engaged in an interagency review of Taiwan’s 2008 requests to purchase certain defense articles and services.”
The head of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee, Lin Yu-fang (林郁方), downplayed the security impact of the dragging initiative yesterday.
Lin said this was because the US is preoccupied with economic difficulties. He said it was understandable that the Bush administration would discreetly handle Taiwan-US relations because China holds between US$500 billion and US$950 billion in US government bonds.
“[But] the existence of the Republic of China is important to the US [in terms of strategic significance],” he said. “Therefore, the US policy of arms sales to Taiwan will remain unchanged no matter who is elected the next US president.”
The Legislative Yuan broke a four-year gridlock on June 15 last year by approving the long-stalled government budget requests for an arms procurement package of 12 P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, eight diesel-electric submarines and six PAC-3 anti-missile batteries. The former Democratic Progressive Party government’s proposal to acquire the three major weapon systems was submitted to the legislature for review in June 2004, but had been blocked by the pan-blue-dominated legislature.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) said yesterday that Taiwan needs to enhance its defense capabilities and Taiwan’s stance on the arms package remained unchanged.
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
RSS