The government owes the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) an apology for an article published by the state-owned Central News Agency (CNA) that “denigrated” the chairmanship of the de facto US embassy in Taiwan, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said yesterday.
The article in question, written by Stephen Chen (陳錫蕃), a leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) National Policy Foundation and the nation’s representative to the US between 1997 and 2000, was posted on the CNA Global Watch Web site on Friday last week.
“It was really inappropriate for Chen to write such an article, in which he looked down on several former AIT chairmen. Chen makes the AIT sound like it isn’t worth anything,” Tsai told the legislature’s Foreign and Defense Committee.
Tsai said Chen wrote the article “just because he was not happy with Nat Bellocchi,” a former AIT chairman whose name was among the 34 signatories of an open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) voicing concern over possible political motives behind his administration’s moves against the DPP over the alleged disappearance of 36,000 official documents.
The signatories included academics and former government officials in the US, Europe, Canada and Australia, all long-term observers of the country’s democratic development. Bellocchi’s name appeared at the top of the list because the signatories were presented in alphabetical order.
“[Chen’s article] seriously damaged the US-Taiwan relationship. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs must apologize to the AIT,” Tsai said, adding that Chen’s former position as envoy to Washington and the state-owned nature of the media that carried his article made it even more important that such an apology be made.
In his article, Chen says the AIT chairperson is a “figurehead” who lacks the real authority of an “imperial envoy,” adding that even the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the US Department of State outranks the AIT chairperson.
The operations of the AIT do not even fall under the chairperson’s authority, Chen added.
CNA ran a news article on Tuesday on its news Web site promoting the article. Readers will know how to evaluate Bellocchi and the open letter to Ma after reading Chen’s article, CNA said in the article.
Contacted by the Taipei Times by telephone, AIT spokesperson Sheila Paskman said she had read the article, but that the AIT would not comment on the matter.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) said Chen was not an official at the ministry and that he had retired from civil service.
‘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