A group of 25 US lawmakers on Tuesday sent a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on Washington to invite President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to the APEC forum leaders’ meeting, reiterating a similar letter sent in April as the group prepares to convene in San Francisco next month.
The Republican lawmakers led by US Representative Lance Gooden said in the letter that as a full APEC member, Taiwan “deserves fair and equal treatment on par with other APEC member states,” Fox News reported on Tuesday.
“Taiwan has made significant strides with economic, cultural and technological contributions in not just the Asia-Pacific region, but also around the world,” Fox quoted the representatives as saying.
Photo: AP
“Withholding an invitation to President Tsai Ing-wen for the APEC leaders’ summit shortly after making major economic and trade commitments would undo years of bilateral progress with Taiwan and portray our government as hypocritical to the rest of the world,” they said.
Noting that no Taiwanese president has ever been invited to APEC’s annual summits due to objections from Beijing, despite Taiwan being a member since 1991, they wrote that “denying the inclusion of Taiwanese leadership in APEC will only further embolden” the Chinese Communist Party.
They concluded by urging the administration to use the US’ platform as host nation to invite Taiwan to fully participate in the summit.
The APEC Leaders’ Meeting is scheduled to be held in San Francisco from Nov. 11 to 17. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) has attended the meeting on behalf of the president since 2018.
Gooden and another 20 Republican representatives had sent a similar letter to Blinken in April, but the US Department of State’s “inadequate” response necessitated a repeated demand, Fox News quoted the lawmakers as saying in the Tuesday letter.
Gooden also wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on April 21, saying that Biden could make a “powerful statement” by inviting Tsai.
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