Kurt Campell — the major US diplomat dealing with Taiwan relations — has resigned as assistant US secretary of state for East Asia.
His departure on Friday was not unexpected — he signaled months ago that he planned to leave at the end of US President Barack Obama’s first term. A replacement has not been named and Campbell’s highly respected deputy Joe Yun — one of the highest-ranking Korean-Americans in the US government — is taking over on a temporary basis.
The development was first reported on Friday night by Chris Nelson in his privately distributed Nelson Report.
According to well-informed sources, the White House has suggested National Security Council director for Japan, South Korea and North Korea Daniel Russel as Campbell’s permanent replacement. However, those sources say that US Secretary of State John Kerry is still considering others.
Other possibles are said to include Harvard professor Joe Nye; former US ambassador to South Korea Kathy Stephens; former Department of State official Susan Shirk; former American Institute in Taiwan chief Richard Bush; Senate Foreign Relations staffer Michael Schiffer; and Frank Januzzi, head of Amnesty International’s Washington office.
A Department of State source said that he did not know what Campbell was planning on doing next. Campbell could not be reached for comment. The source said that Campbell had simply informed Kerry that he had decided to return to private life.
“Assistant Secretary Campbell played an instrumental role in leading the Department’s efforts to reorient American priorities to the Asia-Pacific as part of the strategic rebalance to maintain and deepen relations in the region,” the State Department said in a statement.
At a conference last month, Campbell joked about his career at the department ending soon by saying that when he arrived for work that morning there was a delivery truck in his parking space. He added that workmen had been told that his office was empty.
Later he said that he expected to find a big black crow on his office windowsill.
Campbell has been extremely popular and Asian experts in Washington are almost unanimous in their praise of his diplomatic abilities.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS