A large group of Taiwanese American organizations is petitioning US President Barack Obama to dramatically increase the US’ ability to stop a Chinese military takeover of Taiwan.
Over the past three months, the group has collected 17,000 letters of support from Taiwan, Japan, Canada and across the US.
They met on Tuesday in Washington with Ted Mann, director of the US State Department’s Office of Taiwan Coordination, and Barbara Schrage, managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), to present a petition to be passed on to Obama at the White House.
“There was a cordial exchange of views,” a State Department source said later.
The petition asks Obama to reaffirm the US’ Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and to “voice concern about the erosion of freedom of speech and assembly and the loss of judicial independence on Taiwan.”
It also asks Obama to send a Cabinet member to Taipei, allow US Navy ships to call at Taiwanese ports and deploy two aircraft carrier task forces to the Western Pacific to maintain the capacity to resist any Chinese attack on Taiwan.
While it is unlikely Obama will agree to any of these moves, analysts say the petition will help remind the State Department of the anxiety felt by many Taiwanese over the possibility of a Chinese takeover.
Among the groups presenting the petition were the Formosan Association for Human Rights; the Formosan Association for Public Affairs; the North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association; the North America Taiwanese Women’s Association; the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan; the Taiwan Hakka Association of Public Affairs in North America; the Taiwan Association of University Professors and the Taiwanese American Association.
The letter to Obama says that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been pursuing a policy of “incremental capitulation” by reducing the budget and size of Taiwan’s military, deepening the dependency of the nation’s economy on China and downgrading Taiwan’s international status.
“Taiwan is being delivered into Beijing’s grasp by stealth,” the letter says.
Following Tuesday’s closed-door meeting at the AIT offices, Jay Loo (盧主義), spokesman for the petition project, told the Taipei Times that the US would suffer a “geostrategic disaster” if China took over Taiwan.
He said sea lanes and airspace around Taiwan were critical to the survival of Japan and South Korea and that if those two countries fell under Chinese domination, “the US would be forced to retreat all the way back to Hawaii.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique