US strategy in the East Asian region will be affected if the pan-blue camp continues to lean toward China and remains unwilling to show that Taiwan is determined to defend itself, a US academic said on Friday.
Robert Sutter, a visiting professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University, made the comments while attending a conference on East Asian Security and Taiwan held by the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
Sutter also offered a pessimistic view of Taiwan's future, saying that China's growing strength could result in Taiwan becoming further isolated in the international arena, while pushing the US and Taiwan further apart.
He said that President Chen Shui-bian (
Regardless of whether the US will have a Democrat or Republican president after 2008, the administration will place China in the mainstream and a trend toward marginalizing Taiwan will become unavoidable, he said.
Former US Ambassador to China James Lilley, who also attended the event, said that Americans are realists and that the situation was not as bad as Sutter described it.
Lilley nonetheless added that the US was annoyed by Taiwan's unwillingness to defend itself while asking for US protection, and that the US and Taiwan should work together in examining how Taiwan could effectively defend itself.
He said that although the US and China are monitoring each other's military development and Beijing still uses the US as the virtual enemy in its military exercises, they were moving away from military confrontation toward economic cooperation.
The development of the Chinese market is an unstoppable trend and the US is hoping to become part of that trend through cooperation with Taiwanese businesses, he added.
Taiwan's representative to Washington David Lee (
Lee said that Taiwan fully understood that maintaining strong defense capabilities was a premise for maintaining peace and the ability to deter any action that may endanger regional security.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS