Two pro-Taiwan members of the US House of Representatives proposed that President George W. Bush take advantage of his current trip to Asia to visit Taiwan as a token of US recognition of the island's outstanding achievements in promoting freedom and democracy.
Representatives Tomas Tancredo and Robert Simmons, both Republicans, made the appeal in a joint letter dated Nov. 15 to Bush, who is attending the 2005 APEC informal leadership summit in Busan, South Korea.
Arms purchase
The congressmen said in the letter that if Bush were to make a brief visit to Taiwan following the summit, he would be able to meet with Taiwan's leader to lay an emphasis on the importance of arms procurement for the country's future, in addition to reaffirming US commitment to a free and democratic Taiwan.
Tancredo told a reporter that Bush is devoted to promoting freedom and democracy around the world, so he should visit Taiwan, one of the US' staunchest allies in Asia.
For his part, Simmons said Taiwan is an emerging Asian democratic country and worthy of a visit by Bush, since stepping up democracy and freedom is the priority agenda of his Asian trip.
Symbolic
Meanwhile, Wu Ming-chi (
Noting that Bush had cited Taiwan's freedom, democracy and prosperity in a keynote speech delivered in Kyoto, Japan, Wu said the Bush administration should take concrete action to conduct direct contact and talks with Taiwan's government.
Following this weekend's summit, Bush is scheduled to travel to Beijing, where he will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires