Calling himself a "new Taiwanese," American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Stephen Young refused to be labeled green, blue or red during the recent political brouhaha, saying that his true colors were red, white and blue -- the colors of the US flag.
"I am none of those colors [green, blue or red]. You all [people of Taiwan] don't make that easy but that's what I try and do every day," Young said last Thursday at a press conference in Taipei.
During the press conference, which Young held to convey the US government's perspective on the arms budgets before the Legislative Yuan, he said that the US expected Taiwan to pass the arms procurement bills this fall.
PHOTO: WALLY SANTANA, AP
Young's remarks created a fierce backlash in local political circles.
Lawmakers in the pan-blue camp accusing him of "interfering" in Taiwan's internal affairs.
They encouraged their supporters to "paralyze" AIT's offices with telephone calls. Other anti-arms sales groups held protests in front of the AIT's Taipei office on Xinyi Road.
Others, such as Chiang Ming-chin (
Still others commented that Young's attitude is what Taiwanese politics lacks -- the ability to put national interests above personal or political interests.
"I think what Young expressed last Thursday was US policy rather than expressing a personal like or dislike for either the pan-green or pan-blue camps," said Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), a research fellow in political science at Academia Sinica.
"Young is a professional diplomat and he pretty much voiced the US government's long-term stance on the arms budgets," Hsu said.
He said that although the pan-blue camp reacted strongly to Young's remarks, it may not have noticed one crucial message that Washington wanted to reveal through Young -- that the US is making an evaluation of potential new leaders in Taiwan.
"I believe that the US is evaluating who will be the future leader of Taiwan and who of them is willing to cooperate with the US to resist China," Hsu said.
Yu Pen-li (尤本立), an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute of American Studies at Tamkang University, said pan-blue lawmakers overreacted to Young's remarks, pointing out that the envoy was simply playing his role as the US government's messenger.
"I think Young's statement had nothing to with his inclination for certain political parties in Taiwan. To the US, the arms budgets should be an issue that transcends partisan politics," Yu said.
Although pan-blue lawmakers said that Young had hurt the feelings of the people of Taiwan, the diplomat may be the only AIT director willing to be so involved in Taiwanese life and activities.
Young, 55, assumed his position as AIT director on March 18. However, this is not his first time in Taiwan but his fifth.
Young, who served as US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan from 2003 to last year, had been deputy AIT director from 1998 to 2001.
But Young first came to Taiwan at the age of 12 with his father, who served as a military adviser to the Republic of China army in Kaohsiung from 1963 to 1965.
Young climbed Yushan (
Young speaks good Mandarin and is learning to speak Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese).
He is also the veteran of many marathons and took only 19 minutes and 35 seconds to scale Taipei 101 two weeks ago.
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