The government owes the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) an apology for an article published by the state-owned Central News Agency (CNA) that “denigrated” the chairmanship of the de facto US embassy in Taiwan, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said yesterday.
The article in question, written by Stephen Chen (陳錫蕃), a leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) National Policy Foundation and the nation’s representative to the US between 1997 and 2000, was posted on the CNA Global Watch Web site on Friday last week.
“It was really inappropriate for Chen to write such an article, in which he looked down on several former AIT chairmen. Chen makes the AIT sound like it isn’t worth anything,” Tsai told the legislature’s Foreign and Defense Committee.
Tsai said Chen wrote the article “just because he was not happy with Nat Bellocchi,” a former AIT chairman whose name was among the 34 signatories of an open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) voicing concern over possible political motives behind his administration’s moves against the DPP over the alleged disappearance of 36,000 official documents.
The signatories included academics and former government officials in the US, Europe, Canada and Australia, all long-term observers of the country’s democratic development. Bellocchi’s name appeared at the top of the list because the signatories were presented in alphabetical order.
“[Chen’s article] seriously damaged the US-Taiwan relationship. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs must apologize to the AIT,” Tsai said, adding that Chen’s former position as envoy to Washington and the state-owned nature of the media that carried his article made it even more important that such an apology be made.
In his article, Chen says the AIT chairperson is a “figurehead” who lacks the real authority of an “imperial envoy,” adding that even the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the US Department of State outranks the AIT chairperson.
The operations of the AIT do not even fall under the chairperson’s authority, Chen added.
CNA ran a news article on Tuesday on its news Web site promoting the article. Readers will know how to evaluate Bellocchi and the open letter to Ma after reading Chen’s article, CNA said in the article.
Contacted by the Taipei Times by telephone, AIT spokesperson Sheila Paskman said she had read the article, but that the AIT would not comment on the matter.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) said Chen was not an official at the ministry and that he had retired from civil service.
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
Taiwan must invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to keep abreast of the next technological leap toward automation, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said at the luanch ceremony of Taiwan AI and Robots Alliance yesterday. The world is on the cusp of a new industrial revolution centered on AI and robotics, which would likely lead to a thorough transformation of human society, she told an event marking the establishment of a national AI and robotics alliance in Taipei. The arrival of the next industrial revolution could be a matter of years, she said. The pace of automation in the global economy can
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,