US Vice President Kamala Harris on the deck of a US warship in Japan yesterday said that the administration of US President Joe Biden intends to deepen unofficial ties with Taiwan.
“Taiwan is a vibrant democracy that contributes to the global good — from technology to health, and beyond, and the United States will continue to deepen our unofficial ties,” Harris said aboard the USS Howard, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, excerpts of her speech released by the White House in advance showed.
She said that Beijing “has challenged freedom of the seas” and “has flexed its military and economic might to coerce and intimidate its neighbors.”
Photo: Reuters
Many have witnessed “disturbing behavior in the East China Sea and in the South China Sea, and most recently, provocations across the Taiwan Strait,” she said.
“The United States believes that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is an essential feature of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Harris said.
Harris is on a four-day trip to Japan and South Korea intended to demonstrate US commitment to allies in the region.
Photo: AFP
The trip sets the stage for Biden’s visit to the region later this year, when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and speak with allies about efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and address rising tensions over Taiwan.
Harris’ remarks to US sailors wearing dress whites came after Biden pledged in an interview aired on Sept. 18 to defend Taiwan against a hypothetical “unprecedented attack.”
Harris said that US forces would operate in the region “undaunted and unafraid” even as Washington expects “continued aggressive” actions by China.
“We will continue to oppose any unilateral change to the status quo,” she said. “And we will continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense, consistent with our long-standing policy.”
In Beijing, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) told a media briefing that Washington needed to return to the “one China” policy and “unequivocally make clear that it opposes all Taiwan separatist activities.”
Before Harris spoke to the US service members onboard the Howard, she stepped below deck and was given a demonstration of the warship’s missile and anti-submarine capabilities.
A commander pointed at a digital map showing a hypothetical enemy, a “hostile country” that he declined to identify.
“It’s not Guam,” he said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS