President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday urged Washington to strengthen high-level dialogue with Taiwan and said he hoped to see the two countries establish a "two-plus-two" mechanism through which foreign and defense ministers can meet regularly.
The president said continuous contact and dialogue were important because they were conducive to resolving differences or misunderstandings.
It is an open secret that Taiwan and the US has a good high-level dialogue mechanism, particularly on the security level, he said.
However, the US later adjusted those communication channels, Chen said, adding that since American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Stephen Young took office, the channel has switched to the AIT and Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington.
"We are not saying Director Young is doing badly. He does a great job and we are very grateful for his contributions," he said. "But the US and Japan have embassies and the two-plus-two communication mechanism because the embassy or the ambassador cannot take care of certain matters. It is like US President George W. Bush's hotline to the Japanese prime minister, Chinese president and other diplomatic allies."
Chen said he realized many factors had contributed to problems in bilateral interactions, but changing the mechanism for high-level dialogue was an important one.
Chen made the remarks while meeting Randall Schriver, former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific under the current Bush administration, and Dan Blumenthal, who served as the senior director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the Secretary of Defense's Office of International Affairs under the administration of George H.W. Bush, at the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon.
Schriver is a founding partner of the Armitage International consulting firm and Blumenthal works as a resident fellow in the US-based conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute..
They are in Taiwan to share a report on the state of US-Taiwan relations.
Chen yesterday said he had noticed the report steered clear of the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty. He said it was impossible to separate Taiwan's sovereignty from its relations with the US or China.
Schriver said they did address the question of sovereignty in their report, but in a more oblique way.
"But we did feel it is important to state very clearly our view that Taiwan's future status belongs to nobody other than the people of Taiwan, and the people of Taiwan should make the choice about what Taiwan should be in the future," Schriver said.
Although they have not explicitly taken a position on the issue, it should not be viewed as removing any options from the table that the people of Taiwan may want to pursue, he said.
Regarding Taiwan's international space and profile, Schriver said they thought it was important that the US and others continue to support Taiwan's application and interest in joining international organizations.
In addition to seeking membership in these global organizations, Schriver said their report articulated a vision that involves global partnership on joint promotion of democracy, as well as collaborating on international development assistance and humanitarian aid in some cases.
Blumenthal said it was important to have dialogue and contact because the Taiwan Strait is a flash point for the US, which could become involved in a military conflict.
"We think it's very dangerous in this type of security environment, not to have dialogue with Taiwan, not to be able to talk about military issues or sensitive diplomatic sensitive issues," he said.
Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), a Hsieh camp spokesperson, told reporters after the closed-door meeting that Hsieh told the two that the March election would have a dramatic impact on the strategic balance and the common interests of Taiwan and the US in the Asia-Pacific region.
If his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rival, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), was elected, he would push Taiwan into unification with China with his "one China" policy and "common market" theory, Hsieh told them.
Ma also met Schriver and Blumenthal at his campaign office yesterday morning, telling reporters after the meeting that he had expressed his intention to rebuild trust between Taiwan and the US if he was elected.
"I conveyed to them my foreign diplomacy platform, especially my policy about rebuilding trust between the US and Taiwan," Ma said in Taipei when asked for comment.
"Over the past eight years, the mutual trust has been damaged to a certain extent," he said.
Ma said he also talked about improving cross-strait relations through his proposal of seeking no unification with China, no independence and no use of force.
He said the talk also touched on the nation's plan to purchase F16 fighter jets and pursuit of a US-Taiwan free trade agreement.
Ma, however, said they did not talk about the two upcoming referendums on the nation's UN bid.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS