New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, on Monday outlined his so-called “3Ds strategy” to promote peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait during a meeting with US academics at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The 3Ds refer to “deterrence, dialogue and de-escalation.
The hour-long closed-door meeting was not open to the press, but Hou published an English-language article titled “Taiwan’s Path Between Extremes: the Kuomintang Presidential Candidate Lays Out a Plan to Avert War With China,” the same day in the Foreign Affairs magazine.
Photo: CNA
Taiwan has to be prepared for war, but use its strength to safeguard peace and stability across the Strait, Hou said in the article.
However, at the same time, he advocates the re-establishment of dialogue with China per the Constitution of the Republic of China, as well as the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), which provides a legal framework for cross-strait relations.
“Drawing from successful experiences with such dialogue during past KMT governments, such as the collaborative efforts to combat crime since the 1990s that culminated in a comprehensive agreement on judicial mutual assistance signed in 2009, I will continue cross-strait communication while avoiding military miscalculations,” he wrote.
Hou said that such cross-strait dialogue must be based on the principles of equality, goodwill and dignity.
“Through mid and long-term interactions between both sides, I believe it is possible to gradually decrease hostility and reduce the risk of conflict across the Taiwan Strait and avoid the threat of war,” he wrote.
After the closed-door meeting, Richard Bush, non-resident senior fellow in the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings and a former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director, said that both sides had a “very detailed and substantive discussion.”
“My cohosts and I believe that people on the American side got a very good understanding of Mayor Hou’s views on cross-strait relations and US-Taiwan relations, and we’re grateful for that,” he said.
“I think that Mayor Hou heard very clearly what the interests and concerns of people on the American side were,” Bush said, without elaborating.
Following the think tank speech, Hou visited the AIT Washington headquarters and was greeted by AIT Chairwoman Laura Rosenberger. The closed-door meeting lasted an hour and Hou did not make a public statement afterward.
Sources said that Hou also met with several Republican lawmakers, including Mike Garcia, Pete Sessions and Keith Self.
Hou is on an eight-day visit to the US that began in New York.
Yesterday was Hou’s last day in Washington before he heads to San Francisco and returns to Taipei.
It has been a longstanding practice for Taiwanese presidential candidates to visit the US before elections.
Taiwan People’s Party Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential nominee, also visited the US earlier this year.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
RSS