The US government said it has no plans to alter its "one China" policy in response to senior presidential advisor Koo Kwang-ming's (
Koo's advertisement, entitled "US adherence to one China policy only benefits communist dictators: Let Taiwan speak out for a lasting peace," appeared in the Washington Post and the New York Times on Monday and in the Taipei Times yesterday.
Adam Ereli, deputy spokesman of the US Department of State, said at a Monday briefing that Washington's China policy remained the same.
"There is no cause for rethinking it," he said.
Koo, in his advertisement, pointed to what he called contradictions in US policy.
"While the US is telling the Taiwanese to increase their arms purchases to deter a Communist takeover, it is also telling the same Taiwanese that they cannot have their own country, their own Constitution, their own national anthem, or even a flag of their own choosing ... in the name of maintaining the status quo," the advertisement read.
Victor Chin (
"We did not know in advance he was going to place the advertisement. His article does not represent the ministry's stance," he said.
However, Chin said, the "one China" policy had indeed caused a lot of confusion.
"The US' `one China' policy is very different from Beijing's `one China' principle," he said.
Many countries adhere to the "one China" policy, which has a huge impact on Taiwan's diplomacy, Chin said.
Taiwan's relations with the US encounter many limitations because of the "one China" policy, he said. "We hope the US and other countries can be more practical in handling relations with us."
Different US government agencies have different interpretations of the "one China" policy, but it is unlikely that Washington will change the policy in the near future, said Lo Chih-cheng (
Lo said the US had clearly stated that it wished China and Taiwan to maintain the status quo.
"The US would shoot itself in the foot if it changes its `one China' policy," Lo said.
Washington does not see contradictions in its arms sales to Taiwan while warning the country against pursuing independence, he said.
"The US wants peace and stability [across the Taiwan Strait]. For Washington, the two policies are complementary rather than contradictory," Lo said.
Koo is currently on a trip overseas and was not available for comment yesterday.
In his advertisement, Koo quoted passages from the US Declaration of Independence.
He asked if the US had departed from the founding spirit of its core democratic values and appealed for Washington to support for Taiwan as it moves toward becoming a new country.
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