Randall Schriver, who has been nominated for US assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs, on Thursday said he would make strengthening ties with security partners such as Taiwan a priority if his nomination is confirmed.
“If confirmed, it will be a priority to invest in our security partners in Taiwan and Singapore, and emerging partnerships with countries such as Vietnam,” Schriver said at a nomination hearing held by the US Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington.
“For this administration’s vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific to be realized, we must position ourselves to prevail in the long-term strategic competition we face vis-a-vis the People’s Republic of China,” he told the committee in his opening statement.
Photo: CNA
The US should continue to look for opportunities to cooperate with China where the two countries’ interests overlap, Schriver said, but he acknowledged that finding such opportunities would be a challenge.
“The Chinese Communist Party’s vision for a new security architecture in Asia with China at the center is in many ways at odds with our own aspiration for the region,” he said. “If confirmed, I will approach the duties of my position with an understanding that a rising China presents the most consequential security challenge of my generation.”
In response to a question from Senator Tom Cotton on whether the level of US sales of weapons to Taiwan is sufficient to deter Chinese aggression, Schriver answered: “We have more work to do there.”
Cotton also raised the concern that China always has a quantitative advantage over Taiwan’s military and he asked whether it also had a qualitative advantage right now.
“In certain niche areas they do, but overall, I think Taiwan maintains a qualitative edge to the point where they could deter and hopefully defeat a Chinese invasion,” Schriver said. “There are scenarios short of invasion, coercion scenarios, which are very dangerous for Taiwan.”
Schriver, a former Taipei Times columnist, served as chief of staff and senior policy adviser to then-US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage from 2001 to 2003.
He took the helm of the Project 2049 Institute — a US think tank dedicated to researching security trends in Asia — after serving as deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2003 to 2005.
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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