The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a foreign assistance spending bill with an amendment forbidding that funds be used to create, procure or display maps depicting Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China.
The amendment was introduced by five Republican representatives — Tom Tiffany, Steve Chabot, Scott Perry, Kat Cammack and Mike Gallagher — and passed unanimously in a bundle with a dozen other amendments.
“This is a common sense measure,” Tiffany said, speaking on the House floor on Wednesday. “As we all know, Taiwan has never been part of communist China. The Taiwanese people elect their own leaders, raise their own armed forces, conduct their own foreign policy and maintain their own international trade agreements.”
Photo: AFP
“By every measure, Taiwan is a sovereign, democratic and independent country,” he said. “Any claims to the contrary are simply false.”
Tiffany told his colleagues that the US should abandon its dishonest “one China” policy, which acknowledges “Beijing’s bogus argument that Taiwan is part of Communist China.”
While this amendment cannot achieve that goal, it would “at least require honest maps that stop perpetuating the ‘one China’ lie,” he added.
The full spending bill, titled “Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act 2022,” passed with a 217-212 vote. The bill next heads to the US Senate and, if approved, would be sent to US President Joe Biden to be signed into law.
In other news, a US Navy destroyer on Wednesday transited the Taiwan Strait, the seventh time a US battleship has navigated the waterway separating Taiwan and China since Biden took office on Jan. 20.
“The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Benfold conducted a routine Taiwan Strait transit on Wednesday through international waters in accordance with international law. The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the US 7th Fleet said in a statement.
“The United States military flies, sails and operates anywhere international law allows,” it said.
Since January, US warships — all Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers — have made similar transits through the Strait.
The USS John S. McCain sailed through the waters on Feb. 4 and April 7; the USS Curtis Wilbur on Feb. 24, May 18 and June 22; and the USS John Finn on March 10.
Over the past few years, the US has sent warships into the region in what is seen as an attempt to counterbalance China’s growing military presence in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and neighboring waters, and to show its continued commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
In Taipei yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense confirmed the passage of the USS Benfold through the Strait.
During the ship’s passage, sailing from south to north, the military used joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools to monitor movements at sea and in the air around Taiwan, the ministry said, describing the situation as normal.
However, the US warship’s passage was met with strong criticism from China yesterday.
Shi Yi (施毅), a spokesperson for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command, described the maneuver as yet another provocative move by the US.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS