President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) held closed-door meetings and spoke with US officials, including having a teleconference with US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during her layover in New York, National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said.
Tsai Ming-yen made the remarks on the president’s chartered flight as the delegation left the US for Haiti on Saturday.
Tsai Ing-wen met American Institute in Taiwan Chairman James Moriarty soon after her arrival in the city on Thursday afternoon, and the following day met former US secretary of state Richard Armitage, before speaking with Pelosi on the telephone, he said.
Photo: CNA
The president expressed gratitude for the US’ and Pelosi’s support of Taiwan, including the US House of Representatives’ passage of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 on Friday, which includes a section supporting continued US arms sales to Taiwan, Tsai Ming-yen said.
Before attending a banquet with the Taiwanese-American community on Friday evening, the president spoke with a number of US senators and representatives, Tsai Ming-yen said.
US congressional members were interested in the Taiwan-US relationship and voiced support for Tsai Ing-wen’s role in pragmatically growing bilateral ties, he said, adding the relationship between Taiwanese and US officials is good and trust between the two runs high.
On Saturday, the president took a tourist ferry on the Hudson River past the Statue of Liberty.
“Seeing her at a close distance helped me better appreciate the significance of the existence of freedom and democracy,” Tsai Ing-wen wrote on Facebook.
The statue represents the freedom of the US, and illuminates the path in front of democratic countries, she wrote.
Before departing the Big Apple for the Caribbean to visit four diplomatic allies at about noon on Saturday, Tsai Ing-wen walked in Central Park with young Taiwanese who mostly settled in New York after finishing their studies in the US.
During her visit to New York, Tsai also met with the UN representatives of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies at Taiwan’s liaison office in New York and delivered a speech at Columbia University.
However, Chinese groups protested her visit outside the hotel she was staying at, and were involved in physical altercations with pro-Taiwan groups.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS