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.
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The number of pet cats in Taiwan surpassed that of pet dogs for the first time last year, reaching 1,742,033, a 32.8 percent increase from 2023, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday, citing a survey. By contrast, the number of pet dogs declined slightly by 1.2 percent over the same period to 1,462,528, the ministry said. Despite the shift, households with dogs still slightly outnumber those with cats by 1.2 percent. However, while the number of households with multiple dogs has remained relatively stable, households keeping more than two cats have increased, contributing to the overall rise in the feline population. The trend
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS