US Representative Mike Waltz, who was nominated by US president-elect Donald Trump as national security adviser, recently emphasized the importance of Taiwan in advanced chip production and global trade.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has been “openly talking about the decline of America” and “replacing America as a global leader, the decline of Western values,” Waltz said during a Reagan Foundation event in California last month to promote his book, Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret.
Waltz said Xi aims to replace Western values with “essentially a techno surveillance state dictatorship” and described Taiwan as Xi’s “next step” after taking control over Tibet and Hong Kong.
Photo: AP
The lawmaker also warned of the “implications” of China taking over Taiwan.
“Not only would they control 80 percent of the world’s most advanced computer chips, if you look at the geography, they would [also] control the shipping lanes into Japan, South Korea [and] Southeast Asia, [which is] about 50 percent of global GDP,” Waltz said. “The stakes are enormous.”
Waltz, a retired colonel, was the first US Green Beret elected to congress in 2018, after serving multiple tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. He is a well-known China hawk who serves in the US House of Representatives’ China Task Force that seeks to address the Chinese Communist Party’s influence.
China has been building its military, and their navy and aerospace forces are now larger than the US’, Waltz said, adding that the Chinese government was “tripling — not just doubling — the size of their nuclear arsenal.”
Future US presidents should not just think in traditional terms of “tank to tank, ship to ship,” but also in terms of cyberattacks — such as those conducted by Volt Typhoon, a state-sponsored hacking group, he said.
Waltz said Volt Typhoon is not just spying, but also putting “cyber time bombs into our system.”
“The first shot in every war game now is fired in space and in cyber,” he added.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS