In view of the US and Japan's plan to revise their security pact to make the Taiwan Strait a mutual security concern, Vice President Annette Lu (
"[The plan] signified that Taiwan's existence, Taiwan's sovereignty and Taiwan's security are receiving attention from the international community," Lu said.
The vice president made the comments yesterday in response to media questions regarding a Washington Post report that the US and Japan would declare after a meeting in Washington, DC yesterday on bilateral security matters that Taiwan is a mutual security concern.
In a meeting yesterday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and Japanese Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono were expected to make strong statements about tension in the Taiwan Strait.
Approving of the moves, the vice president called on Taiwan's people to adopt a severe and vigilant attitude with regard to the cross-strait situation.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday welcomed the US and Japan's planned declaration to identify the Taiwan Strait as one of their "common strategic objectives."
"Taiwan, being a member of the Asian region, is more than willing to continue taking part in regional events and assist in safeguarding the region's peace and stability," MOFA spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said.
Hsiao Bi-khim (
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said yesterday that expected revisions to the US-Japan Security Alliance will make a Chinese invasion of Taiwan difficult to achieve.
While giving a lecture to trainees at the Lee Teng-hui School, Lee said that Beijing has used military force to try to intimidate the Taiwanese people into voting for candidates it favored in the three presidential elections since 1996.
Disappointed at its failure to achieve the desired results, Beijing has given up hope on unification through peaceful means and is determined to achieve unification through military force, Lee said.
He said that China's plan to enact an "anti-secession law" has received negative responses from the US and Taiwan because Beijing's claim that Taiwan is part of China is totally unconvincing.
He urged Beijing to review its nationalist policy and to bring about peace in Asia.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
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US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
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