Three US senators on Thursday last week called on US President Donald Trump to send a delegation to attend President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) second inauguration scheduled for May 20.
The move would be within the scope of the Taiwan Travel Act, which was signed into law by Trump on March 17, 2018. The act allows “officials at all levels of the United States government, including Cabinet-level national security officials, general officers and other executive branch officials, to travel to Taiwan to meet their Taiwanese counterparts.”
It is also not out of the ordinary for US officials to attend foreign inaugurations. For example, a delegation led by then-US secretary of energy Rick Perry on May 20 last year attended the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A Taiwanese delegation attended Trump’s inauguration in 2017, much to the dissatisfaction of China, which sent a delegation led by Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai (崔天凱).
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) on Friday last week said that the government would strengthen ties with the US during Tsai’s second term, and while such statements are routine, the state of US-China ties might signal new opportunities for Taiwan.
An article on the Web site of the US’ National Public Radio quoted Evan Medeiros — the US National Security Council’s senior director for Asian affairs under former US president Barack Obama — as saying that “right now, the US-China relationship is suffering from a deep deficit of trust.” While there has always been some distrust between the two countries, it has been exacerbated by an ongoing trade dispute and “significant strategic differences,” he was quoted as saying.
The US has also accused China of lacking transparency regarding COVID-19 and of failing to cooperate on combating its spread.
For its part, Beijing has slammed Washington for banning the entry of foreign nationals who were in or transited through China within 14 days prior to their arrival in the US, and for restricting the number of Chinese media personnel who could be stationed in the US. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) has accused the Trump administration of spreading fear and panic.
Given this, the US senators’ backing of Taiwan comes as no surprise, and they are not alone in expressing support. Canadian Conservative Party lawmakers on Feb. 16 challenged the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over its exclusion of Taiwan. Canadian lawmaker James Bezan expressed his feelings toward China and his frustration over Taiwan’s exclusion from the ICAO on Twitter, saying: “Has the International Civil Aviation Organization been taken over by the Communist Party of China? Hey @icao — get your facts straight! Taiwan is a thriving independent democracy.”
Prior to that, in a session of parliament on Jan. 29, Canadian lawmaker Michael Cooper called on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to explicitly state the government’s position on Taiwan’s inclusion in international discussions about preventing the spread of COVID-19. Trudeau responded that the Canadian government supported Taiwan’s participation.
Tsai has said that a large public inauguration might not take place due to disease-prevention efforts, and it is likely the public would be supportive of this decision. A small closed-door inauguration that is livestreamed and televised would be a fitting alternative, and would be much more effective if it is attended by a US delegation.
Tsai could take the initiative by inviting delegations from the US, Canada and other like-minded democratic nations who have expressed support for Taiwan. If such delegations participated, it would set a precedent and could signal an important shift in the nation’s foreign relations.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they