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 CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS