Vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) on Wednesday called for support from the US Congress and business leaders for Taiwan’s inclusion in the US defense supply chain.
“I seek your support for Taiwan’s inclusion in the DoD [US Department of Defense] NDIS [National Defense Industrial Strategy] international collaboration mechanisms, such as SOSA, security of supply arrangements,” Hsiao said in a prerecorded video at the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington.
While Taiwan is striving to uphold the values of democracy and freedom, it is facing daily challenges to its cyberspace, information technology and telecommunications infrastructure, maritime and airspace, she said.
Photo: screen grab from YouTube
The peace and security of Taiwan “is essential to global prosperity” as the nation is an “irreplaceable and indispensable contributor to global technology advancements,” Hsiao said.
She called on public and private stakeholders around the world to work together to ensure that “peace and prosperity prevail.”
Hsiao said that the current US defense industry base is producing “neither enough nor on time” the hardware to meet global demand.
The US Department of Defense in January published the National Defense Industrial Strategy to guide the improvement and the modernization of the US defense industrial base ecosystem “so it delivers at speed and scale for our war fighters,” US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said at the time.
The strategy underlined the importance of international collaboration, Hsiao said.
“I believe this is where a Taiwan partnership with the United States is not only a force multiplier, but an absolute necessity,” she said.
She proposed an integrated collaboration or coproduction scheme that leverages Taiwan’s advantages in hardware manufacturing and the US strength in security technologies to “add resilience and efficiency to our defense supply chains.”
“Together we can manufacture nearly anything as efficiently and reliably as anyone in the world,” Hsiao said.
The forum is dedicated to “harnessing the power of technology to address America’s most pressing national security challenges,” according to its Web site.
Hsiao said that she hoped the forum would help foster “an even closer Taiwan-US partnership in the realm of technology and national security.”
Asked about Hsiao’s speech, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday told reporters at the legislature in Taipei that integrating Taiwanese and US industries would be “highly beneficial to both parties.”
Taiwan’s defense industry has a strong foundation and other relevant industries are also well-developed, he said.
Joining the US defense supply chain would not only be a good thing for Taiwanese industries and national defense, but also for the nation’s allies and partners, Wu said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS