The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is optimistic that its sour relations with the US is in the past and would be rebuilt by better channels of communication regardless of who wins today’s US presidential election, DPP officials said yesterday.
Relations with the US have been one of the priority issues since he took the party’s helm and it would continue to be so, DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told a forum, which previewed the US presidential election, at DPP headquarters.
Relations between the DPP and the US took a downturn during the latter part of Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) presidency and hit bottom after the US beef controversy and a US official’s criticism of DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), said Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), executive director of the DPP’s Policy Research Committee.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
However, the DPP is determined to put the past behind, with the party sending legislators and party officials to the US Democratic Party and Republican Party’s conventions in August and September, Wu said.
Wu and Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠), director of the DPP’s Department of International Affairs, also visited officials of the US government and the Republican Party.
The response to the trips were phenomenal, as US officials showed their good will and intention to ensure smooth communication with the DPP, said Wu, who was formerly Taiwan’s representative to the US.
“People I talked to in the US expressed wishes for Taiwan to maintain closer relations with Japan and concern toward President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pro-China handling of the dispute over the Diaoyutais (釣魚台),” Wu said.
With the establishment of an office in Washington in the plan, the DPP is confident that it could work with the US government regardless of who — US President Barack Obama or his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney — wins the presidential election, Liu said.
The party expressed its wish to avoid the “surprise and misunderstanding” during the January presidential campaign and reassure Washington that Su’s mentality and approach on China affairs would be “flexible and pragmatic,” Liu said.
With the US election going down to the wire with no clear-cut favorite, the only sure thing for Taiwan is that the US team on Asia-Pacific affairs would be undergoing personnel changes, said Joanne Chang (裘兆琳), a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies.
In a review of Obama’s Taiwan policy, Chang said the US president had placed US-Taiwan relations under the framework of US-Sino relations during his first two years in office, between 2008 and 2010.
However, Obama’s good will was not well-accepted by the Chinese, which was why he approved the arms sale to Taiwan in 2010 and later made changes on his Taiwan policy, evidenced by closer bilateral engagement at APEC, inclusion of Taiwan in the visa-waiver program and high-level talks in the Pentagon, Chang said.
Creating jobs and promoting exports would be high on the agenda of whoever wins the US election and that could pose concerns for Taiwan because the US is not a Santa Claus who only helps Taiwan without asking favors in return, she said.
“The US could look for exporting more products to Taiwan. And Taiwan has to be ready for the impact, in particular after the US beef controversy last year,” Chang said.
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