US Representative Dana Rohrabacher on Wednesday submitted a resolution to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs calling on the US government to resume diplomatic relations with Taiwan and abolish Washington’s long-held “one China” policy.
“The [US] president should abandon the fundamentally flawed ‘one China policy’ in favor of a more realistic ‘one China, one Taiwan policy’ that recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign and independent country, separate from the Communist regime in China,” Rohrabacher’s resolution said.
The resolution also urged the US president to begin the process of resuming normal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Photo: Bloomberg
In addition, the US president, the US permanent representative to the UN and other relevant US officials should “aggressively support Taiwan’s full participation in the UN and any other international organization of which the US is a member, and for which statehood is a requirement for membership,” the resolution said.
Rohrabacher said in the resolution that China has been using the “one China” policy to block Taiwan’s membership and full participation in international organizations and events, but the policy is “effectively obsolete, and does not reflect the obvious reality that Taiwan has been an independent and sovereign country for over half a century.”
Rohrabacher is a founding joint chair of the US Congressional Taiwan Caucus, which was formed on April 9, 2002.
Similar resolutions were introduced in 2005 by then-US representative Tom Tancredo, in 2007 and in 2009 by then-US representative John Linder, and in 2012 and 2013 by US Representative Michael McCaul, the Washington-based Formosan Association for Public Affairs said.
“The resolution affirms that the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances form the cornerstone of US-Taiwan relations,” the association said in a statement.
“The Taiwanese people brought about their momentous transition to democracy some 30 years ago, but US policy did not adapt to that new reality,” association president Mike Kuo (郭正光) said in the statement. “By normalizing relations with Taiwan, the US would set a shining example for other countries to emulate.”
Asked to comment, Department of North American Affairs Deputy Director-Deneral Regine Chen (陳慧蓁) yesterday said that any friendly moves made by friends in the US are welcomed by the government.
“We will continue to work closely with our friends in the US Congress over the latest developments regarding the proposal,” she said.
Additional reporting by CNA
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS