Government officials here have mixed views about whether China would ask US Vice President Dick Cheney for promises on Taiwan as he begins a three-day visit to Beijing and Shanghai today.
Cheney's visit would be the highest-level official exchange between China and the US since President Chen Shui-bian (
Taiwan, human rights, trade and North Korea are expected to top Cheney's agenda in Beijing. He is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who earlier this month defended the US' sale of advanced radar systems to Taiwan, is among the officials in Cheney's entourage. Beijing says Washington is breaking its promises by selling high-tech weapons to Taiwan.
Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Alexander Huang (黃介正) said Wolfowitz is visiting China for several reasons, but explaining the US arms sales to Taipei would not be part of his mission.
Two US China experts, David Lampton and Kenneth Lieberthal, in their article "Heading Off the Next War" published in the Washington Post yesterday said Cheney is likely to reiterate the traditional American stance on cross-strait relations.
"It appears he will follow the traditional American path of recommending cross-strait dialogue and warning of severe consequences should military conflict flare," the article said.
Cheney will also assure Beijing that Washington opposes unilateral independence for Taiwan, according to the article.
"While voicing these essential elements of a prudent message, the vice president also should signal both Beijing and Taipei that America is prepared for new thinking in the search for peace and growth in the region," the article said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Chung-hsin (陳忠信), head of the DPP's mainland affairs department, said he believed North Korea, not Taiwan, would be the focus of Cheney's trip.
The way the China-Taiwan-US trilateral relations, he said, have operated remains basically unchanged since before the election.
Although China expected more promises from the US, Cheney would stick to Washington's "one China" policy by reiterating the three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act, the lawmaker said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Rong-kung (張榮恭) believes Beijing may demand stronger pledges on Taiwan from the US after hosting the second round of six-way talks on North Korea.
However, Chang said Beijing has to face the fact that the Taiwan issue has been internationalized.
China's respect for Taiwanese people's mainstream opinion will play a critical part in seeking peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Chang 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