US Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican presidential hopeful, has accused the administration of US President Barack Obama of ignoring Taiwan’s interests, “including its urgent need for defensive arms.”
It is the first time that Taiwan had been seriously introduced into the US presidential campaign.
“In the face of Chinese coercion, the United States must reassert its commitment to Taiwan’s security,” Rubio, who is co-chairman of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said in a statement on Sunday.
“It has been four years since the White House notified Congress of a major arms sale to Taiwan, the longest period without such a notification in over 25 years,” he said.
The statement was in response to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) meeting in Singapore on Saturday.
Following the last televised Republican debate, Rubio surged in the polls, although he remains behind the two leading “outsider” candidates, business mogul Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
He is ahead of one-time favorite former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and, despite a potential financial scandal, the US press is reporting that “establishment” Republicans are gravitating to Rubio.
It remains to be seen if the leading Democratic hopefuls, former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders, will respond to Rubio’s comments about Taiwan.
Referring to the Singapore meeting, Rubio said that he welcomed cross-strait dialogue that furthers peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
“The US should also welcome Chinese President Xi’s recognition that stability is best served by dealing with Taiwan as an equal partner,” Rubio said. “Such bilateral engagement at the highest levels should be the new norm in cross-strait relations, regardless of who is in power in Taipei.”
Rubio went on to say that Washington must remain “clear-eyed” about China’s intentions.
He said the timing of the meeting suggested a Chinese attempt to influence Taiwan’s presidential elections.
“Beijing should refrain from any efforts to interfere in Taiwan’s democratic political processes,” Rubio said.
“This meeting, moreover, should not distract from the fact that China has for decades pursued a coercive policy towards Taiwan, isolating it from the international community and directly threatening it with more than 1,000 missiles aimed at the island,” he said.
Rubio said that Taiwan had shown the world that traditional Chinese culture and democracy could coexist and even flourish.
“Taiwan’s continued existence as a vibrant, prosperous democracy in the heart of Asia is crucial to American security interests there and to the continued expansion of liberty and free enterprise in the region,” he said.
The US must do more to help Taiwan counter the growing military threat from China, he said.
“Instead of focusing on petty bilateral trade disputes, the US should be pushing for Taiwan’s eventual inclusion in additional international organizations and trade agreements,” he said.
“We too must engage with Taiwan at higher levels to ensure peace and stability across the Strait,” he said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS