Relations between the US and China will deepen in the years to come, but that does not necessarily pose a risk to relations between the US and Taiwan, a US defense expert said yesterday.
The war against terrorism and the North Korean nuclear crisis have forced the George W. Bush administration to reassess its relations with China, said John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FENG, LIBERTY TIMES
In his keynote speech to the International Conference on Political and Economic Security in Asia-Pacific sponsored by the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies, Hamre recognized Taiwan's worries about the heightened collaboration between Washington and Beijing.
Hamre said he is aware there are those who fear Washington may reduce its commitment to Taiwan for the sake of improving ties to Beijing.
"There are also those who worry that Beijing will rashly attempt to force America to choose between Chinese support against North Korea and American support for Taiwan," he said.
But Hamre said these fears are unlikely to be realized. He said China is cooperating with the US on North Korea out of its own self-interest rather than as a favor to the US.
He said China is in no position to demand concessions from the US on cross-straits issues because of their cooperation in confronting a dangerous and irresponsible government on the Korean Peninsula.
"I believe the Chinese government understands this situation very well," Hamre said.
Also speaking at the conference -- which focused on the war on terrorism, US relations with Asian allies and regional economic security -- President Chen Shui-bian (
"I am convinced that regional security can only be achieved through international cooperation. Taiwan has been actively participating in the international campaign against terrorism," Chen said.
Taiwan, Chen said, has been closely collaborating with other countries in intelligence sharing, the crackdown on money laundering and inspection of containers entering and leaving its ports.
The US appreciates Taiwan's cooperation to help block terrorist activities, especially the government's "courageous steps in helping to intercept potentially dangerous shipments in the region," Hamre said.
The country has done much to provide important intelligence support and has committed to work with the US on the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Container Security Initiative, he said.
Yoshio Okawara, president of Japan's Institute for International Policy Studies, told the conference in his speech that many security experts believe that after North Korea, the Taiwan Strait is a potential flash point.
In his keynote speech to the conference, the former Japanese ambassador to the US said one of the crucial factors involved in the Taiwan Strait issue is the state of relations between the US and China.
Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), chairman of the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research and a former premier, cited the example of Taiwan's relations with China to illustrate how economic variables affect national and regional security.
Taiwan is facing a dilemma in handling the economic side of its national security due to its relations with China, Siew said.
Taiwan is worried it will become over-dependent on China's economy, he said.
However, if Taiwan does not develop cross-strait trade and economic relations, its fundamental economic strength might be affected, Siew said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater