US Ambassador to Palau John Hennessey-Niland, who arrived on Sunday with a delegation led by Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr, is the first US ambassador to visit Taiwan in more than 40 years, signaling that Washington is becoming more active in engaging Taipei, academics said on Sunday.
The delegation is visiting Taiwan to promote tourism to Palau through a “travel bubble,” which would ease COVID-19 restrictions on travel between the two countries.
During a short address after the delegation’s arrival at the airport, Whipps said Hennessey-Niland, who has served as US ambassador to Palau since March last year, was among the delegation.
The visit marks the first time a US ambassador has publicly visited Taiwan since Washington cut ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing in 1979, said Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a senior analyst at the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
The visit shows that the US no longer treats interaction between its ambassadors and Taiwan as taboo, said Lin Ting-hui (林廷輝), deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Society of International Law.
It also demonstrates that the US is becoming more active in its engagement with Taiwan, he added.
He foresees more cooperation among Taiwan, the US and Palau, as the three countries work together on security and defense, he said.
Taiwan has maritime cooperation agreements with Pacific allies Palau, Nauru and the Marshall Islands, while Palau and the US have cooperated on defense, and Taiwan and the US on Thursday last week signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a coast guard working group, Lin said.
Taiwan could work with its allies and the US to conduct security exercises in the Pacific or even join the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, a biennial defense exercise organized every two years by the US, he said.
Hennessey-Niland’s visit demonstrates that Taiwan-US cooperation has become multilateral, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said yesterday.
This kind of multilateralism can also be seen in visits that US ambassadors to the Netherlands and Eswatini have made to their Taiwanese counterparts, which is a positive development, he added.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to