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.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its