Following in the footsteps of the US House of Representatives, a group of US senators on Thursday introduced a concurrent resolution reaffirming US commitment to Taiwan to mark the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).
The resolution was submitted by US Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy, along with Jim Risch, James Inhofe, Robert Menendez and Ed Markey.
The resolution reaffirms that the TRA, signed into law on April 10, 1979, and the “six assurances,” issued by then-US president Ronald Reagan in 1982, “are, and will remain, cornerstones of US relations with Taiwan.”
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The US should conduct regular transfers of defensive articles to Taiwan consistent with Taiwan’s national security requirements in accordance with existing law, including the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018, the resolution states.
It also encourages US officials at all levels to travel to meet with their counterparts in Taiwan, and for high-level Taiwanese officials to enter the US and meet with US officials, in accordance with the Taiwan Travel Act.
It calls upon the US secretary of state to engage internationally in support of Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations, and urges the US president to explore opportunities to expand and deepen bilateral economic and trade relations with Taiwan.
Gardner said in a statement that he has for many years been committed to strengthening the relationship between the US and Taiwan, and boosting Taiwan’s role on the international stage.
He reiterated that the US would continue to speak out for Taiwan and its people, as guided by US law, including the TRA, the Taiwan Travel Act and the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act.
Markey, who was already a senator when the TRA was being drafted, said that he would continue to cooperate with his colleagues across party lines to fulfill the responsibility of bolstering relations between the people of the US and Taiwan.
Risch said that despite continued pressure from China, he looks forward to a long-standing partnership between the US and Taiwan, because the two sides have strongly shared values, and economic and security interests.
Taiwan’s representative office in the US thanked the US Congress for its support of Taiwan’s sovereignty, freedom and democracy, as well as security in the Taiwan Strait.
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
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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
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