A bill to encourage exchange visits by Taiwanese and US government officials was on Wednesday passed by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
US Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the committee, said the passage of the Taiwan Travel Act shows that Taipei and Washington embrace common interests.
The committee passed the legislation without any amendment.
Photo: AFP
The bill is now to move on to the floor of the US Senate.
Ahead of the committee vote, Corker told the committee members that Taiwan is a good friend and partner of the US, and that Taipei has been providing assistance to Washington in dealing with a wide range of matters on the international stage.
Senior US government officials rarely visit Taiwan because of Washington’s formal diplomatic ties with China and lack of official relations with Taipei.
When then-US Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy traveled to Taiwan in 2014, she was the first Cabinet-level US official to visit the nation in 14 years.
No other official of that level has visited since.
“The United States government should encourage visits between officials from the United States and Taiwan at all levels,” the bill states.
The legislation aims to “allow officials at all levels of the United States government, including Cabinet-level national security officials, general officers and other executive branch officials, to travel to Taiwan to meet their Taiwanese counterparts,” the bill says.
US Senator Robert Menendez, one of the sponsors of the bill, said a move by the US to continue its commitment to Taiwan is critical to the security of Washington, as the two sides have established close ties through their similar attitudes on democracy and human rights.
The bill passed by the committee is the same version approved by the US House of Representatives last month, so if the US Senate passes the legislation there would be no need for the two chambers to negotiate over a final version and the bill could be sent directly to US President Donald Trump to sign into law.
Beijing is closely watching to see whether US Congress acts on the Taiwan Travel Act, US political news Web site Politico reported earlier this month.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday welcomed the committee’s passage of the act, saying that it fully supported the intent of the bill and welcomed visits by senior US officials.
The bill’s passage reflects bipartisan support in the US Congress to deepen bilateral relations with Taiwan, ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said, adding that the ministry would keep close tabs on developments related to the legislation.
Visits by senior US officials to Taiwan on economic investment, culture and education, as well as energy collaboration, have demonstrated that the US Department of State and the US Congress have been making sincere efforts to promote practical US-Taiwan interactions, he said.
It might take the US Senate several weeks before it votes on the bill, he added.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
RSS