US President George W. Bush was not worried that his praise of Taiwan as an example of a country that was under a repressive government and then liberalized would irritate China, a senior White House official said on Tuesday.
Mike Green, senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council, made the remarks in reply to a media question during a briefing in Kyoto before Bush mentioned Taiwan in a speech.
"The president ... is going to talk about his freedom agenda in a universal sense -- that countries that are successful economically, in order to continue being successful, are going to have to give their people opportunities to worship freely, to own property freely, to express themselves freely," Green said.
These are "elements of a strong and stable society," and there are examples across Asia where countries have found that they're stronger when they've done that, he said.
In his speech, Bush cited South Korea and Taiwan, "because Taiwan is an important example that this kind of pattern knows no cultural or historic line," Green said.
He said the point is not to lecture China or any other country in the region about what kind of system they should have exactly, but rather to make the point that Asia has had a pretty good run -- there has been peace and stability, as well as economic prosperity -- and that if countries want to keep being successful, these other elements are going to have to be brought into the political process.
Green acknowledged that the Chinese are sensitive but that Bush was not worried about antagonizing them with these words, which he said will be repeated when the president is in Beijing, because "we approach this from the premise that US-China relations are good and that we're committed to making them better, and that President Hu [Jintao] (
"So it's in that context and done in a way to explain what else will help China succeed," Green said.
Beijing, however, yesterday deflected Bush's call to embrace democracy and religious freedom.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
"Chinese people enjoy all forms of democracy and freedom under law, including freedom of religion and belief," Liu said.
"We hope to increase consensus and mutual confidence through President Bush's visit," he said.
China was willing to discuss its human rights "on the basis of equality, mutual respect, and non-interference in internal affairs," Liu said.
But Liu said China need not take Taiwan as its model.
"Taiwan has its circumstances, and the mainland has its circumstances," he said.
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,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods