Navigating China’s ever expanding influence, while decoding US President Donald Trump for a somewhat bemused and cynical audience, could be considered a big ask for a self-described “farm boy from Tennessee.”
However, Arthur Culvahouse, the new US ambassador to Australia, has hit the ground running, strengthening the US’ line against China’s soft diplomacy in the Pacific and declaring that the sheriff is back in town.
US Vice President Mike Pence has described Beijing’s loans to Pacific nations as “debt trap diplomacy.” Culvahouse, fresh from conversations on that topic with White House advisers, went further.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I would use stronger language. I would use ‘payday loan diplomacy,’” he said in his first news conference in Australia, moments after presenting his credentials to the governor general.
“I think it is on us, all of the allies and the Western and liberal democracies, to educate people about the dangers of these loans — the fact that the money looks attractive and easy upfront, but you better read the fine print,” Culvahouse said.
“I think we have already have done a good job,” he added.
It is the line that he has been sent to deliver and the most candid that he was prepared to get.
Culvahouse might refer to himself as that long ago “farm boy,” but he first came to Washington’s notice as a staffer for former US senator Howard Baker, supporting the senator’s work on the committee looking into Watergate.
A career in law — including serving as counsel to former US president Ronald Reagan, a stint on the US Federal Advisory on Nuclear Failsafe and Risk Reduction and winning public service medals from both Reagan and former US vice president Dick Cheney for his efforts — has seemingly taught Culvahouse to think before he speaks.
It has been more than two years since the US has had a permanent ambassador to Australia, a fact that the US Department of State and Culvahouse were aware of, choosing to expedite his arrival following the announcement of his appointment in December last year.
US embassy staff and charge d’affaires James Carouso have held the line, keeping communication between Australia and one of its most important allies open, but Trump’s tweet diplomacy, growing tension over the US-China trade spat and China’s aggression in the South China Sea have meant that his permanent appointment was greeted with a diplomatic sigh of relief.
The message is that the US is back in town.
“We are a Pacific nation too,” Culvahouse said.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS