With the upcoming Washington visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao (
The bill, sponsored by Steve Chabot and Sherrod Brown, two Ohio members, was introduced on Thursday and referred to the House International Relations Committee for deliberation.
Noting that Taiwan is one of the "flashpoints in the world," the bill says that direct meetings between top US and Taiwanese leaders are in the US national interest.
It says the current policy, which bars Taiwan's president, vice president, premier, foreign minister and defense minister from coming to Washington, dates from the 1970s and was instituted under pressure from China.
In 1994, Congress passed a law that challenged that policy by allowing Taiwan's president and other high-level officials into the US for talks with officials on a range of issues, including matters of national security, trade and prevention of nuclear proliferation. The Chabot-Brown bill takes note of that law.
"Taiwan is one of the strongest democratic allies of the US in the Asia-Pacific region," the bill states. Yet, while US President George W. Bush in a speech in Kyoto last November praised Taiwan's democracy, that "has yet to be translated into equal treatment of Taiwan's democratically elected leaders ... while allowing the unelected leaders of the People's Republic of China to routinely visit Washington, and welcoming them to the White House."
The bill would end "all restrictions" on visits by Taiwan's president and other top officials, encourage high-level contacts at Cabinet level to "strengthen a policy dialogue with Taiwan's government," and declare it to be "in the national interest of the US to strengthen its links with the democratically elected government of Taiwan and demonstrate stronger support for democracy in the Asia-Pacific region."
The bill, which expresses the "sense of Congress," would not be binding on the administration.
International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde this week praised Taiwan as "a great example to the rest of the world about how democracy can work."
"I think the [Taiwanese] people are extraordinarily brave, extraordinarily productive. They have fought Communism successfully by themselves for many years, and they defeated Communism, and are still a free and sovereign state," he said after receiving the highest civilian award from Chen.
"Their interests are our interests, and our interests are their interests," he added.
The Formosan Association for Public Affairs, which had a role in drafting the bill, praised it strongly.
"The timing of the introduction of this important resolution is very significant," association president C.T. Lee said.
"With the upcoming visit of China's unelected President Hu Jintao to the White House, the [caucus] co-chairs are sending a crystal clear signal to President Bush that the democratically elected president of Taiwan should be welcomed to DC as well," he said.
Hu will visit Washington from April 19 to April 21. He will spend much of the day of the 20th with Bush and his aides, with an all-morning meeting and a formal lunch.
The visit will be a working visit, not a state visit, so Hu will not be given the normal formal dinner at the White House.
His big public appearance will be at a dinner on the 20th, when a passel of private organizations seeking good relations with Beijing hosts him at a dinner in which he will give a speech.
During his two days in Washington, Hu will also meet with members of Congress, China supporters at the Chinese Embassy, and various China-watchers in the city.
After a trip to Yale University, Hu will then visit Nicaragua, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to