US representatives visiting Taiwan yesterday brushed off talk of the US “abandoning” Taiwan, saying that would be a betrayal of US commitments to liberty.
The abandonment of Taiwan would mean “more than losing a strategic ally” to the US and would also betray the US’ -commitment to liberty, US Representative Thaddeus McCotter said in a question-and-answer session during a forum with young people in Taipei organized by the Formosa Foundation.
The Michigan congressman was part of a seven-member US congressional delegation which is headed by Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs. The group arrived on Sunday as -President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was inaugurated for his second term in office.
McCotter, Ros-Lehtinen and Representative Jean Schmidt attended the forum and held a 60-minute discussion with dozens of young students and others on a variety of issues.
Recalling the 1989 Tiananman Square massacre, McCotter lamented that past US administrations had failed to grasp the importance of the Sino-US relationship, at the center of which sits the promotion of liberty.
However, Taiwan — in particular its young generation — could take advantage of the power of social media and have an impact in China, McCotter and Schmidt both said. Schmidt also called Taiwan a “beacon on the hill and a bastion of hope.”
On US arms sales to Taiwan, Ros-Lehtinen reassured the forum that the pro-Taiwan US lawmakers had been agitating for an armaments deal including the sale of new F-16 aircraft and -diesel-electric submarines. She said these would help Taiwan maintain its defenses and added that she endorsed providing the country with the most sophisticated and advanced military hardware available to counter China’s rapidly growing military power as well as Beijing’s intimidation and bullying of Taiwan.
Delegation members all declined to comment on US President Barack Obama’s Taiwan policy or Ma’s performance in office, with McCotter saying that there is no point in the US taking sides on the internal politics of another state.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but