Friday’s telephone call between President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and US president-elect Donald Trump marked significant progress in Taiwan-US relations, Taiwan’s Representative to the US Stanley Kao (高碩泰) said on Saturday.
Kao said at a gathering in New York for US-based Taiwanese groups that Taiwan-US relations have achieved great progress in various areas and that Taiwan’s representative office in the US hopes to continue promoting reciprocal ties with Washington on the basis of the US’ Taiwan Relations Act, the “six assurances” and mutual trust.
The Taiwanese community in the US also viewed the call positively.
Photo: CNA
Jerry Shiao (蕭貴源), president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New York, said the conversation shows the importance Trump attaches to Taiwan and Taiwan-US relations, adding that he hopes the US will continue to help Taiwan defend itself and two-way trade between Taiwan and the US will continue to grow.
Lauding Trump as a shrewd businessman, Shiao said that the call would help improve relations on many fronts and promote friendship between both nations.
The US is Taiwan’s most powerful ally and the conversation has laid a solid foundation for the development of Taiwan-US relations and bilateral cooperation, he added.
Former minister of foreign affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) said in Taipei that the call is “a good beginning” for Taiwan’s relationship with the Trump administration.
Many in Taiwan had been incorrectly pessimistic about Taiwan-US relations during Trump’s term, but those opinions are the result of failing to assess Trump accurately as a politician who acts in ways that breaks with convention, said Chen, who served under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Trump is approaching Taiwan-US ties from the perspective of a businessman, who finds nothing wrong with taking a call from a client of US arms sales, Mark Chen said.
Although heavy opposition to the call is “inevitable,” Taiwan should seize this opportunity to convince Trump that he has “made the right choice” and tell him that “Taiwan is distinct from China,” Mark Chen said, adding that finding common interests between Taiwan and the US and establishing a friendly pattern of interaction before Trump takes office would be “highly beneficial to Taiwan.”
Since Trump favors bilateral trade agreements over multilateral free-trade agreements, Taiwan should emphasize the importance and mutually beneficial nature of the Taiwan-US trade relationship, which could serve as the “first steps to high-level interactions and visits between the two nations,” he added.
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said that the call demonstrated that Taiwan-US relations are robust and supported by both parties and that he looks forward to the further development of the relationship, adding that friendly interactions with the US improves Taiwan’s international visibility and chances of participating in global affairs.
Additional reporting by Chou Ming-hung
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