Top US and Chinese officials were to discuss arms sales to Taiwan at separate meetings in Washington and Beijing yesterday, sources said.
In Washington, Wang Yi (王毅), the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, was scheduled to meet with State Department officials, while in Beijing, US Defense Undersecretary for Policy Michele Flournoy was to head a US delegation in talks with Chinese officials, including People’s Liberation Army deputy chief of staff Lieutenant General Ma Xiaotian (馬嘯天).
Taiwan’s National Security Council Secretary-General Su Chi (蘇起) is believed to have been briefed on the situation during a low-profile visit to Washington late last month.
However, US officials were reluctant to say anything on Monday about the substance or significance of the meetings.
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Ian Kelly was asked who would be meeting with Wang and what would be on the agenda.
He said: “You know, I’m not sure. So, if we can get you information, I will get you information.”
Pressed by reporters at the routine daily briefing about “new developments across the Taiwan Strait” he said: “Well, we are — we are very supportive of a lessening of tensions across the strait. And we would — we would welcome further such developments.”
Other well-placed Washington sources confirmed that future arms sales to Taiwan were on the agenda for the meeting with Wang.
Meanwhile, reports from Beijing indicated that Flournoy’s meetings would constitute the 10th annual round of defense consultations on building closer military ties and would mark the resumption of military exchanges between the two countries.
The Chinese Defense Ministry announced in a news release that the two sides would talk about “bilateral military relations, Taiwan issues, international and regional security issues and other issues of common concern.”
The release added: “China attaches great importance to this round of consultative talks and hopes to make concerted efforts with the United States to ensure positive results from the talks.”
Pentagon sources would not confirm that the two sets of meetings were linked, even though they would be going on at the same time.
But a well-connected academic at a Washington-based think tank said, “You would be right in thinking that this is not a coincidence.”
The financial news service Bloomberg reported that Flournoy’s delegation aims to win a resumption of high-level visits by Chinese military officials to Washington, increased cooperation and more open discussion of China’s military buildup.
“The US has expressed concern for years that China is building up its military strength near Taiwan and asserting maritime rights with moves such as harassing the US Navy vessel Impeccable in March. China’s defense spending has increased by more than 16 percent a year for the past decade, according to Chinese government figures,” Bloomberg reported.
Other sources said that aside from Taiwan issues, the Beijing meeting would concentrate on the North Korea nuclear crisis and the North Korean cargo ship Kang Nam, which is being shadowed by the US Navy and is believed to be carrying missiles and related parts to Myanmar in violation of UN sanctions.
Sources speaking on the condition of anonymity said that at both the Washington and Beijing meetings the possible future US sale to Taiwan of F-16 fighter planes, helicopters and diesel submarine technology would be on the agenda.
During his visit to Washington last month, Su discussed cross-strait relations with high-level officials in the administration of US President Barack Obama, including Jeffery Bader, senior director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY BLOOMBERG
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
China is likely to focus on its economy over the next four years and not set a timetable for attempting to annex Taiwan, a researcher at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wrote in an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday. In the article titled “Why China isn’t scared of Trump: US-Chinese tensions may rise, but his isolationism will help Beijing,” Chinese international studies researcher Yan Xuetong (閻學通) wrote that the US and China are unlikely to go to war over Taiwan in the next four years under US president-elect Donald Trump. While economic and military tensions between the US and China would
RSS