Twenty-nine members of the US Congress have called on US Secretary of State John Kerry to launch a major new Taiwan policy review.
They released their joint letter to Kerry on Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the previous review.
A senior source within the administration of US President Barack Obama told the Taipei Times that the Congressional letter needed in-depth study and that it was too early to comment on what action might be taken as a result.
However, several former US government officials and diplomats attending a conference on Thursday on the 1994 Taiwan policy review said that a new examination might not benefit Taiwan and they favored the current system of quietly accumulating policy changes in an incremental way.
The Congressional move was headed by House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward Royce, a Republican from California.
“We feel strongly that there is a need today to undertake a new and thorough Taiwan policy review, laying the basis for further expanding relations with Taiwan and thereby enhancing continued peace and stability in the region,” the letter said.
“In 1979 when we shifted diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, Taiwan was ruled by a government claiming to represent China,” it added. “When the US conducted its last Taiwan policy review in 1994, Taiwan was just starting to emerge as a full democracy.”
“Over these past two decades, the people of Taiwan have consolidated their democracy and established a vibrant and pluralistic democracy in their country,” the letter said.
There would be strong Congressional support for opening up the relationship by scrapping many current restrictions, and allowing Taiwan’s leadership to visit Washington to discuss and negotiate trade and diplomatic developments.
“With the geopolitical shifts that have taken place in the Pacific during the past years and with the 2013 US rebalancing commitment to Asia, a second Taiwan policy review is overdue,” Formosan Association for Public Affairs president Mark Kao (高龍榮) said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS