A long-time ardent US congressional supporter of Taiwan's independence has announced that he plans to urge the House of Representatives to support full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan when Congress returns from its August break this week.
Representative Peter Deutsch, a Democrat, made public Friday the text of a speech he plans to make on the floor of the House this week. A copy was made available to the lobbying group Formosa Association for Public Affairs (FAPA).
"I call on President George W. Bush to implement the same policy his father fought for [in 1971]: dual representation for both Beijing and Taipei in the UN, participation by Taiwan in all international fora, and full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan by the United States," Deutsch will say.
Deutsch blamed the lack of US recognition of Taiwan on former national security advisor and secretary of state Henry Kissinger and on former president Chiang Kai-shek (
While Bush's father tried to gain dual representation in the UN for Taipei and Beijing, with Taiwan in the General Assembly and China in the Security Council, his efforts were "undercut" by Kissinger and Chiang, Deutsch said.
Kissinger, at the time of the October 1971 debate on admitting China to the UN, was on a trip to Beijing in preparation for then US president Richard Nixon's historic trip the following year, and Chiang opposed dual representation, "clinging to the absurd position that he and his Kuomintang government were the sole legal government of all the Chinese people," Deutch will say.
"It behooves us," he will say, "to fully recognize Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation, a democratic ally in the war on terror, a forceful nation of 23 million citizens working for a better world."
"The brave citizens of Taiwan deserve nothing less and the global community striving to defeat terrorism will be strengthened by Taiwan's recognition and participation," he will say.
Deutsch, an 11-year veteran of the House, was one of the sponsors and main protagonists for the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, which would tighten military and other ties between Washington and Taiwan.
He was also the initiator of legislation in 1994 that enabled Taiwanese-Americans to list "Taiwan" as the place of birth on their US passports, instead of "China."
Reaction to the advance copies of Deutsch's comments were guarded.
FAPA president Wu Ming-chi (
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift