The head of a prominent business group accused US President Barack Obama of compromising Taiwan’s security to promote US ties with China.
Taiwan is watching “with increased exasperation,” said Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan Business Council.
Hammond-Chambers said the US departments of state and defense, as well as the US Trade Representative, appeared interested in building closer US ties with Taipei despite resulting complications in the US-China relationship.
“Regrettably, this effort runs smack into a White House that clearly views Taiwan as a barrier to US interests in Asia,” he wrote in an annual year-end report dated Thursday and distributed on Friday.
Obama, much like his predecessor, former US president George W. Bush, has slowed the submission of proposed Taiwan arms sales to Congress, over fears, analysts say, of disrupting China-Taiwan rapprochement and to avoid angering Beijing.
“If the Obama administration balks at providing replacement F-16 fighters to Taiwan, China will have won a major victory in the Taiwan Strait without firing a shot,” Hammond-Chambers said.
The updating of Taiwan’s F-16 fleet was a “material response” to Beijing’s own fighter modernization, he added.
The council’s board chairman is Paul Wolfowitz, a former World Bank president and former US deputy secretary of defense. The group has long advocated arms sales to Taipei, including meeting its wish to buy 66 advanced F-16C/D fighter jets to update its F-16 fleet.
The council represents scores of companies doing business with Taiwan, including Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier by sales, Boeing Co and Raytheon Co.
China strongly opposes all US arms sales to Taiwan.
Stating his belief that the “strong support for Taiwan strengthens both our own and Taiwan’s standing with China,” Hammond-Chambers listed in his report four priorities the business group has outlined as its work for this year.
The priorities include the council pushing for a full resumption of US-Taiwan trade and investment framework agreement meetings without preconditions and with an agenda that identifies areas of liberalization that can — in some way — counter China’s efforts to challenge US economic interests in Taiwan.
The council will also press for an end to the US administration’s habit of notifying Congress of its decision to sell arms to Taiwan, as a package, and instead make one-by-one notifications on weapons that it deems ready to be sold to Taiwan. Congress has the power to stop the sales.
“Packaging” of arms sales, a practice begun by Bush in 2007 in “a vain attempt to reduce Chinese ire” over what it regards as interference in its domestic affairs, undermines US resolve to help Taiwan defend itself and significantly weakens Taiwan’s defense modernization, Hammond-Chambers said.
The council will also support the acceptance of a Letter of Request for 66 F-16s to replace Taiwan’s aging F-5s and Mirage 2000s and to offer some material response to China’s ongoing investment in fourth generation fighters, such as the J-10.
The council will also support the resumption of visits to Taiwan by US Cabinet officials to promote US economic interests in Taiwan.
The White House declined to comment on the criticism, which echoed the group’s unhappiness with Bush’s delay in meeting Taiwan’s arm requests. Washington has placed more importance in recent years on working with China, a veto-wielding UN Security Council member, including on such matters as North Korea, Iran and climate change.
Vance Chang (張鷹), spokesman at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, had no immediate comment.
Hammond-Chambers said several other arms deals that are in the works — including UH-60 Black Hawk tactical transport helicopters built by United Technologies Corp’s Sikorsky Aircraft unit and PAC-3 missile batteries and missiles built by Lockheed and Raytheon — have been ready for notification to Congress for more than a year.
The business council had expected those sales would move forward after trips Obama made to China in November and a climate change conference in Copenhagen last month, Hammond-Chambers said.
“But it now appears as if that timetable is slipping,” Hammond-Chambers wrote. “The Chinese government can view these extended periods of delay, angst, and commensurate half-decisions and non-decisions as important improvements in their position on this issue.”
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
‘SALAMI-SLICING’: Beijing’s ‘gray zone’ tactics around the Pratas Islands have been slowly intensifying, with the PLA testing Taiwan’s responses and limits, an expert said The Ministry of National Defense yesterday condemned an intrusion by a Chinese drone into the airspace of the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) as a serious disruption of regional peace. The ministry said it detected the Chinese surveillance and reconnaissance drone entering the southwestern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone early yesterday, and it approached the Pratas Islands at 5:41am. The ministry said it immediately notified the garrison stationed in the area to enhance aerial surveillance and alert levels, and the drone was detected in the islands’ territorial airspace at 5:44am, maintaining an altitude outside the effective range of air-defense weaponry. Following
RSS