Two members of the US Congress have urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to stop in Taiwan for talks with President Chen Shui-bian (
Representatives Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, and Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican -- two of Taiwan's staunchest supporters in Congress -- sent Rice a letter on Monday, just before she was to embark on a five-day trip to Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow to discuss the UN resolution calling for sanctions against Pyongyang.
"We hope you will stop in Taipei this week to talk with President Chen about enhanced US-Taiwan cooperation on cargo inspections and enforcement of sanctions," the letter said.
It also asked Rice to "consider a role for Taiwan in the ongoing six-party negotiations, as the outcome of those negotiations is just as critical to Taiwan as it is for the other six nations who are currently participating."
The UN resolution, passed by the Security Council unanimously over the weekend, calls on nations to act to prevent North Korea from importing and exporting weapons and critical technologies to other countries, efforts that could involve interdiction and inspection of North Korean vessels and other shipments.
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday expressed support for the resolution, pledging to cooperate with the resolution and take measures on embargo and export controls on North Korea.
The Tancredo-Rohrabacher letter recalls that the State Department formed a high-level task force with Taiwan's National Security Council some time ago.
Enforcement
That task force "worked to improve Taiwanese export control and enforcement systems and engaged in a variety of joint law enforcement activities focused on North Korea."
In August of 2003, for instance, Taiwanese customs officials boarded a North Korea-bound ship in Kaohsiung harbor at the request of US intelligence authorities looking for illegal chemicals that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
The US asked Taiwanese authorities to confiscate the ship, but the ship's North Korean captain, news reports said, refused to cooperate.
Eventually, the ship unloaded the cargo, 158 barrels of phosphorous pentasulfide, and the goods were confiscated.
Since Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test last week, news reports have detailed the US effort to control nuclear and missile traffic to North Korea involving at least 13 nations.
The 2003 seizure of the North Korean cargo predated US Customs' official announcement in July last year that Kaohsiung had become the 38th port to join the Container Security Initiative. Teams of Taiwanese and US customs officials now work together screening cargo in Kaohsiung and Keelung.
More recently, Taiwan seized some 20 shipping containers of counterfeit cigarette wrappers destined for North Korea, the congressional letter noted.
Illegal drugs
In addition to those actions, Taiwan has long been involved in the fight against illegal drugs coming from North Korea. More than a decade ago, North Korea began expanding its production of methamphetamine, which has emerged as a popular illicit drug throughout Asia.
According to US State Department narcotics officials, Taiwan has, over the years, seized several shipments of meth and heroin, which were transferred to drug traffickers' ships on the high seas from North Korean Vessels. The department has heaped praise on Taiwan for its efforts in thwarting the North Korean-based international drug trade.
Beyond the possible interdiction of North Korean shipping by Taiwanese authorities, it is unclear how effective Taiwan can be in imposing economic sanctions on Pyongyang, as envisioned in the UN resolution.
According to a Taiwanese trade official in Washington, trade between Taiwan and North Korea is small.
Last year, Taiwan imported some US$20 million in goods from North Korea, mainly coal, magnesium, plants and foodstuffs, and textiles. Taiwan exported only US$4 million to North Korea, mainly synthetic fibers and electronics.
One senior Taiwanese official in Washington described that trade as "insignificant."
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
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
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