The US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is on Wednesday to deliberate on the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022.
The deliberations were originally scheduled to take place on July 9, but were postponed to Sept. 3 after some Republican senators requested more time to study the bill. It was further postponed as the US Senate first handled Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership applications.
Robert Sutter, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University, in an article published in The Diplomat on Saturday said that bipartisan majorities in both chambers of the US Congress indicate support for Taiwan.
Photo: AFP
“Supporting Taiwan as an important partner in dealing with these challenges [from China] remains a high priority,” he wrote.
China increased military exercises around Taiwan after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei early last month.
However, that did not deter further US congressional visits to Taipei or efforts by the administration of US President Joe Biden to foster closer ties with Taiwan, he wrote.
The bill calls for “more symbolic moves in the legislation,” such as renaming Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington from the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to the “Taiwan Representative Office,” Newsweek reported on Thursday.
It also proposes changing the title “American Institute in Taiwan [AIT] director” to “AIT representative,” the appointment of which would require Senate confirmation similar to ambassadorial appointments.
The US might also designate Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally,” as it has done for Australia, Israel, Japan and South Korea, to facilitate arms sales, the magazine reported.
Although some elements of the bill might be discarded, the US is “unlikely to halt future debate” on its Taiwan policies, as China has been increasing pressure on Taiwan, Newsweek reported.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has told reporters that “some of the contents [of the bill] made us worried.”
Kuo Yu-jen (郭育仁), a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies, on Saturday said that the US Congress appears to be seeking “pre-emptive preparedness” with the bill.
Each Taiwan-friendly act the US passes would serve as a legal basis for its administration to formulate policies, most of which are “compliant with the baseline,” he said.
It is therefore reasonable for Sullivan to worry about the bill, as some of its provisions might exceed the baseline established in the past, he added.
The US executive branch might be concerned that the bill would prompt China to take an even stronger stance against Taiwan in the “overall strategy for resolving the Taiwan dilemma in the new era,” which China plans to propose during the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party next month, he said.
However, it is because of Beijing’s tough measures that the US Congress proposed the bill, which seeks to bolster US strategies according to changes in the relationship between the US, Taiwan and China, he said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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