US President Joe Biden on Friday signed into law a sweeping US$1.5 trillion spending bill, which includes a ban on the use of any maps by the US Department of State and its foreign operations that “inaccurately” depict Taiwan as part of China.
The Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022, stipulates that “none of the funds made available by this Act should be used to create, procure, or display any map that inaccurately depicts the territory and social and economic system of Taiwan and the islands or island groups administered by Taiwan authorities.”
The bipartisan Consolidated Appropriations Act, an omnibus spending bill, is to fund federal government agencies for the remainder of fiscal 2022 to avoid an immediate government shutdown. The US Senate on Thursday approved the bill 68-31 and sent it to the White House.
Photo: Screen grab from the National Football League Communications’ Twitter account
The appropriation act was proposed in July last year by lawmakers including Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany, Steve Chabot and Scott Perry, who are friendly to Taiwan.
The bill that same month passed the US House of Representatives by a 217-212 vote, but did not move beyond the Senate and was instead packaged into the omnibus spending bill following revisions.
The original bill had stipulated: “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to create, procure, or display any map that depicts Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Wuciou [烏坵, islands administered by Kinmen County], Green Island (綠島) or Orchid Island [Lanyu, 蘭嶼] as part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China.”
Tiffany told the House that since the 1970s, the US has adopted a “one China” policy to accommodate Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China.
However, he said “Beijing’s bogus argument that Taiwan is part of Communist China” should be abandoned, adding that the bill would “require honest maps that stop perpetuating the ‘one China’ lie.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday thanked the Biden administration and US lawmakers for supporting Taiwan-US relations.
The ban on inaccurate maps shows that the US “recognizes Taiwan as not being a part of China and is willing to take legislative action to ensure truthful depictions of the situation across the Taiwan Strait,” it said in a statement.
Legislative Speaker You Si-kun said on Facebook that the ban would prevent US taxpayer money being spent on maps that show Taiwan as a part of China and instead use the funds to support “honest maps.”
“Taiwan is not a part of China. We thank US lawmakers in the US Senate and House of Representatives for their nonpartisan support of Taiwan and look forward to the growth of Taiwan-US relations,” he wrote.
The 2,741-page Consolidated Appropriations Act would also provide US$13.6 billion in emergency aid to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion, as well as weapons to NATO’s eastern European members.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the aid would include US$1 billion in military assistance, such as Javelin and Stinger missiles, to cement the alliance’s military strength.
The financial assistance also aims to fend off cyberattacks from Russia, he added.
Additional reporting by Yang Cheng-yu and Chung Li-hua
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), currently visiting Poland, on Sunday witnessed the signing of a pact between Taiwan and Ukraine designed to provide aid for underprivileged Ukrainian children. Lin departed Taipei on Saturday and arrived in Poland on Sunday ahead of his scheduled speech at the Warsaw Security Forum. The memorandum of understanding was signed by Representative to Poland Jeff Liu (劉永健) and Tetiana Badylevych, deputy director of the Kyiv City Center for Social Services for Families, Children and Youth. The agreement aims to help underprivileged children in the Kyiv area, particularly those who lost their parents during the Russian invasion. The
Courses on native languages of Taiwan run by the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales’ Taiwan Studies Program in collaboration with multiple Taiwanese higher education institutions have attracted hundreds of sign-ups from Europe. Program director and Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) lecturer Liu Chan-yueh (劉展岳) said the courses would be taught via an online learning platform commencing next month. The platform not only enables foreigners from across the globe to learn about Taiwan, but would also train Taiwanese language teachers to help foreigners learn Taiwan’s native languages as second foreign language, he said. A total of 28 courses would be available, including
LEAKED FILES: While China has the better equipment, Russia can offer combat experience, possibly helping speed up Beijing’s airborne program by 10 to 15 years Russia is selling military equipment and technology to China that could help Beijing prepare an airborne invasion of Taiwan, according to an analysis of leaked Russian documents by a UK-based defense and security forum. The Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI) analysis is based on about 800 pages of documents, including contracts and lists of equipment to be supplied by Moscow to Beijing, from the Black Moon hacktivist group, which previously published some of the documents online. It does not identify its members, but describes itself in a manifesto as opposed to governments that carry out aggressive foreign policy. The authors of the
WINDOW: Xi Jinping is likely to view upcoming interactions with Trump as the best opportunity to undermine ties and weaken confidence in the Taiwan-US relationship Attempts to exploit political transition in the US to create a “strategic gap” disregard Washington’s strategic policy on Taiwan and would not succeed, a Taiwanese national security official said yesterday. The remarks came as a response to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article on Saturday that reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) aims to pressure Washington into explicitly opposing Taiwanese independence, following renewed high-level US-China exchanges. The Taiwanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is unsurprising that China seizes every possible opportunity to undermine the mutual trust and cooperation between Taiwan, the US and their allies. “Beijing once believed
RSS