Several US politicians expressed their support for Taiwan after meeting with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Monday in New York, where he is making a stopover enroute to Paraguay and the Carribean.
Democratic Representative Eliot Engel, a senior member of the US House of Reprentatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, said after his meeting at the hotel where Ma was staying that there is a strong feeling of support for Taiwan and the people of Taiwan in the US Congress.
“I think what’s very important about it: it’s bipartisan supported by the US Congress. It’s a bipartisan feeling. I know [US] President [Barack] Obama feels that way too. We will make sure that will continue,” Engel said.
The congressman also said he told Ma that the committee approved the Taiwan Policy Act at the beginning of this month, a bill that will help strengthen the strong ties between Taiwan and the US if it becomes law, Engel said.
US Representative Gregory Meeks, another Democrat who met with Ma at a dinner party hosted by the president at his hotel, said he had thanked Ma for his administration’s donation of US$500,000 to New York after the city was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy last year.
He said Ma and his guests talked about Taiwan’s visa-waiver privilege from the US and its bid for access to the International Civil Aviation Organization, and they agreed to promote further trade and economic exchanges between the two countries.
Ma also met on Monday with former US secretary of labor Elaine Chao (趙小蘭), along with her father, who was a classmate of Ma’s father-in-law, and her two sisters, who are friends of Ma’s two daughters.
Earlier in the day, Ma, who earned his master of laws degree from New York University (NYU) in 1976, visited the school, reminiscing about his romance with Chow Mei-ching (周美青), who is now his wife.
NYU president John Sexton greeted Ma and presented him with two NYU baseball caps, commemorative pens and his new books as gifts for Ma and his wife.
While at the university, Ma visited his old classrooms, a small basement office he used and the dormitory he lived in across the street from the office.
He also visited the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York in China Town to express his appreciation to the association for its loyalty to the Republic of China (ROC).
The association, which was founded in 1883, represents Chinese-Americans living in the Greater New York metropolitan area. Ma is the first ROC president to visit the association.
Besides a welcoming crowd who waved ROC national flags, there were also a score of protesters, many of whom were Taiwanese students.
They held up banners similar to some seen when Ma arrived at his hotel on Sunday, such as “[You] knock down houses in Dapu today; [we] tear down the government tomorrow,” “Selling out Taiwan with black-hearted service trade pact” and “Do you hear the people’s voice?” and shouted: “President Ma, did you get a good sleep?”
According to local Chinese-Americans, there are very few Taiwanese living in or around New York’s Chinatown; most of the ethnic Chinese come from China’s Guangdong Province.
When asked whether they felt they were stepping on other people’s turf by staging a protest in a place that rarely has contact with Taiwanesee, the students said they were not scared, adding: “It feels less safe [if we protest] in Taiwan.”
Ma arrived in New York on Sunday on a three-day transit stop ahead of a five-nation tour that will cover Paraguay and four allies in the Caribbean.
It was the first time Ma has returned to New York since becoming president in 2008. He was scheduled to leave for Haiti yesterday.
Additional reporting by Peng Hsien-chun
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial