The US has welcomed president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) commitment to maintaining the “status quo,” American Institute in Taiwan Chair Laura Rosenberger said on Friday in an online interview with a US think tank.
Relations with the incoming administration were in good shape, Rosenberger said to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, which held the virtual event to mark the 45th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).
“I’ve had the opportunity twice in two trips since the elections to engage with president-elect Lai and members of his team, to make sure again that we are in a solid place to continue the work going forward,” she said, referring to visits she made in January and this month.
Photo: CNA
“He’s been really clear in terms of his policy priorities, including his commitment to maintaining the status quo, which we, of course, very much welcome,” Rosenberger said on her conversations with Lai.
The TRA was signed into law on April 10, 1979, by then-US president Jimmy Carter after it was enacted by the US Congress a month earlier, in response to the US breaking off diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
“The TRA to my mind has provided a foundation for really everything we are doing to broaden and deepen the relationship,” she said, praising it as “a very insightful and prescient piece of legislation.”
Rosenberger said the TRA was not only about commitments to ensure Taiwan maintains sufficient self-defense capacity, but also “that the US should maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion.”
“I think that’s an important commitment. And you see the US continuing to do work, both ourselves and with allies and partners in the region, to reinforce deterrence in the Indo-Pacific to maintain that critical peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” she said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS