The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday denied a statement by a former chairman, Richard Bush, that the US may try to sway vote in the 2016 presidential election, saying the US government would not intervene in Taiwan’s elections.
“He [Bush] is not a government representative anymore, so he was speaking on his own capacity and does not represent the US government,” AIT spokesperson Mark Zimmer told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview. “We would leave the election to the people of Taiwan, and would not try to intervene or influence.”
AIT officials would meet with candidates during elections, “but that’s not influencing or showing our support for particular candidates,” he said.
Bush, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told a conference on cross-strait relations in Washington on Friday that “the US government at some time and in some way will express itself about the implications of the 2016 election for US interests.”
While he did not speculate about what might happen, Bush indicated that Washington would declare a preference for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate because there were lingering doubts about the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) cross-strait policies.
Bush said that the US government, under the administrations of former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and US President Barack Obama, has shown its views on Taiwan’s presidential elections either through actions, public statements, or a newspaper interview of an anonymous official, such as was published in the Financial Times in 2012.
DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), who served as Mainland Affairs Council chairman and the representative to the US during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration and became the DPP’s representative in the US in November 2012, yesterday said that Taiwanese have the right to make their own decisions.
“The people of Taiwan have the right to vote without being influenced by an outside force,” he said. “If the people of Taiwan could only make decisions in accordance with the interests of a particular country, it is not only against US foreign policy, but also against the Taiwan Relations Act [TRA].”
The US government has always expressed its support for democracy and free elections in Taiwan, and has said it would work with democratically elected governments, adding that the TRA also states that Taiwan should be involved in a dialogue with China under no threats, Wu said.
“If anyone says that the US should intervene in the election in Taiwan because of China, the person is basically saying that ‘authoritarian China may decide on a democratic election,’” Wu said. “I believe this does not represent the mainstream opinion in the US.
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,
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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
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