Sixteen Taiwanese-American organizations urged former US president Bill Clinton in a letter to be “scrupulously neutral” politically when he visits Taipei this weekend.
The signatories fear that Clinton, who will be in Taiwan making a paid speech on Sunday, could be misrepresented as endorsing the policies of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
“Many topics, such as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA], have turned into sensitive campaign issues,” the letter said, in reference to the hotly contested Nov. 27 special municipality elections.
The Ma administration, it said, has frequently used foreign visitors to give the impression that its policies of accommodation with China have “reduced tension” across the Taiwan Strait.
“In our view, this is a flawed and superficial argument,” it said. “China lessened its threats only because the Ma administration has made Taiwan subservient. In fact, the number of missiles China targets at Taiwan has increased.”
It will be Clinton’s first visit to Taiwan since February 2005, when he charged NT$8 million (US$258,000) to make a speech. On that occasion, tickets to attend a book-signing event for his autobiography, My Life, were NT$10,000.
The letter warned Clinton that the Ma administration has “drifted in China’s direction” at the expense of freedom and human rights, adding that he should speak out openly and forcefully for Taiwan’s democracy during his visit.
“We are apprehensive that unwittingly your visit may be used by the Ma administration to score political points,” it said. “If a meeting with President Ma Ying-jeou is entertained, we hope you will also grant an audience to Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen [蔡英文] of the Democratic Progressive Party.”
The letter reminded Clinton that in February 2000 he declared that the issues between Beijing and Taiwan “must be resolved peacefully and with the assent of the people of Taiwan” and implored him to repeat this statement.
Among the letter’s signatories were Terri Giles, executive director of the Formosa Foundation; Linda Lin (林純容), president of the Formosan Association for Human Rights; Bob Yang (楊英育), president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs; and James Chen (陳少明), chairman of World United Formosans for Independence-USA.
Clinton’s visit comes after unsuccessful attempts by former US president George W. Bush and former House speaker Newt Gingrich to visit Taiwan earlier this year.
The Taipei Times has learned that Bush had initially intended to visit Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, but after his office in Dallas, Texas, allegedly received multiple protests from Chinese officials, the former president’s office said Bush could skip Shanghai and Hong Kong altogether and visit only Taiwan.
Chinese officials then allegedly changed their strategy and shifted the pressure onto Taipei, whereupon the latter allegedly asked Bush to reconsider the timing of his visit, in reference to the Nov. 27 elections.
According to a source, Bush’s visit would not have received any funding from the Taiwanese government.
The Taipei Times has also learned that Gingrich’s visit, which would have been sponsored by a private firm, was initially planned for between June and August, and that the former speaker could not come to Taiwan any later than September, given the midterm elections in the US earlier this month.
After a series of delays, organizers allegedly appealed to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Presidential Office, but approval for the visit was received four months later, by which time Gingrich could no longer visit Taiwan.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant