The US, concerned over China's movements in the Taiwan Strait in advance of the March 20 election, will keep a close watch for any signs of military activity by Beijing in the runup to the poll, CIA Director George Tenet said on Tuesday.
"We are closely monitoring the situation across the Taiwan Strait in the period surrounding Tai-wan's presidential election next month," Tenet said in a prepared statement for a hearing of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee on worldwide threats.
Tenet's statement, and his oral remarks in his testimony, repre-sented the strongest warning from the Bush administration in many months over the threat posed by some 500 Chinese ballistic missiles deployed in the Nanjing Military District.
"China continues an aggressive missile modernization program that will improve its ability to conduct a wide range of military options against Taiwan supported by both cruise and ballistic missiles. Expected technical improvements will give Beijing a more accurate and lethal missile force," Tenet told the committee, in what has been his annual report to Congress on global threats.
His comments were the first by a US official that specifically linked the election with Washington's concern over a possible Chinese military response to political developments in Taiwan.
Most observers in Washington, both in and outside of govern-ment, appear to have assumed that China would keep a low profile during the election to avoid bolstering the re-election chances of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Tenet did not explain, nor was he asked about whether he had any intelligence information pointing to a need to keep a close eye on China's military activities.
His concern, though, fits in with the wider issue he mentioned of China's overall military actions.
"Our greatest concern [in East Asia] remains China's military buildup, which continues to accelerate," he said, also citing China's substantial recent diplomatic gains in East Asia, and its economic growth and integration with the region's economies.
"Chinese leadership politics, especially the incomplete leadership transition, will influence how Beijing deals with the Taiwan issue this year and beyond. President and Communist Party leader Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) still shares power with his predecessor in those positions, Jiang Zemin (江澤民)," Tenet said.
The director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, however, told the committee that China had not given any indication that it was planning military activity in connection with the election.
"We see no indication of preparations for large-scale military exercises or other military activity to influence Taiwan[ese] voters at this stage," Jacoby said.
His testimony more closely tracked the public position of the administration since US President George W. Bush slammed Chen's referendum plan after meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
"Domestic political events in Taipei are the principal determinant of short-term stability in the Taiwan Strait," Jacoby said.
"Beijing is monitoring developments in advance of next month's presidential elections and referendum, ever-concerned about a Taiwan declaration of independence," he said.
"Beijing will not tolerate the island's independence and will use military force regardless of the costs or risks," he 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
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
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