The Taiwan Travel Act “atypically recognizes, albeit indirectly, that Taiwan is in fact a ‘country,’” former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director William Stanton wrote on Sunday.
“It is symbolically significant that [US] President [Donald] Trump has signed the Taiwan Travel Act rather than allowing it to go quietly into effect absent his positive endorsement,” wrote Stanton, a visiting professor at National Taiwan University’s International College.
Stanton described Trump’s signing on Friday of the Taiwan Travel Act as a “public signal of affirmation rather than private acquiescence.”
Photo courtesy of William Stanton
However, he also called Trump’s delay in signing the act “worrisome,” because he saw it as “another sign of the vacillation we have already witnessed in [Trump’s] policies toward China and Taiwan.”
Stanton said that during his time as AIT director, he “strongly and often advocated what the Taiwan Travel Act now calls for — expanded high-level visits and contacts” between Taiwan and the US.
“All of the restrictions on the conduct of [the US’] ‘non-
diplomatic’ relations with Taiwan were only the self-imposed interpretative creations of US government lawyers,” he wrote.
“There was no reason why we could not simply change them,” he said, adding that with “quiet support” from Washington, he raised the US flag over the AIT for the first time since 1979, when the US broke formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
“The Taiwan Travel Act is significant, not only because of the higher level treatment of Taiwan it calls for, but also for its ‘findings,’” Stanton wrote.
These findings include “recognition of Taiwan’s ‘momentous transition to democracy,’” and that Taiwan “serves as a ‘beacon of democracy in Asia,’” he said.
Stanton also highlighted the fifth finding stated by the US Congress in the Taiwan Travel Act: “Visits to a country by United States Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials are an indicator of the breadth and depth of ties between the United States and such country.”
He said he hopes Taiwan will take advantage of this “endorsement of higher-level contacts.”
He said he welcomes the “recent shift in direction of the Trump Administration in dealing with China, and the elevation of advisors in the White House who are more willing to challenge the traditional Kissingerian view that the apparent stability of the overall US bilateral relationship with China always supersedes all individual Chinese policies no matter how harmful they are to US interests.”
The Taiwan Travel Act is “an important milestone in the maturation of US policy toward Taiwan and China,” he added.
The next logical step for the US administration “should be abolishing the AIT Washington office,” he said.
The office “long ago ceased to have any real role in Taiwan’s relations with the United States which require no intermediaries,” he added.
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
A slew of new measures are to take effect on Friday, including nationwide bring-your-own-cup discounts. The new rule requires chain beverage shops to offer discounts of at least NT$5 (US$0.17) to customers who bring their own cups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. The policy would apply to more than 50,000 chain retail locations, including beverage shops, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. It aims to cut down on waste from single-use plastic cups, more than 2.2 billion of which were used in Taiwan in 2020, the agency said. For convenience, the EPA said it has asked retailers to display signs stating how
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
COUNTERING CHINA: ‘When democracies demonstrate what we can do ... I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,’ US President Joe Biden said US President Joe Biden rebooted his effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after an earlier campaign faltered, enlisting the support of G7 leaders at their summit in Germany. The Build Back Better World initiative, named after Biden’s domestic spending and climate agenda, struggled to get off the ground because not enough G7 partners contributed financially when it was unveiled a year ago, people familiar with its lack of progress said. “When democracies demonstrate what we can do — all that we have to offer — I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,” Biden said during