The commander of the US forces in the Pacific said on Tuesday he has seen no indication of unusual Chinese military movements in the Taiwan Strait ahead of Taiwan's presidential election, but his forces will monitor the situation "very carefully" in the period between March 22 poll and the presidential inauguration in May.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the posture of US forces in the region, Admiral Timothy Keating said it was "very unlikely that anything will happen across the Strait" in coming months.
He said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the situation in the Strait.
After the hearing, in answer to a question by the Taipei Times during a brief press conference, Keating said that his comment was "optimism fueled by hope."
"I have no indication today," he said, "that there is reason for increased concern with respect to the likelihood of military hostilities in the Strait of Taiwan. We watch very carefully both sides in all areas close to and further from the Strait."
"We have spent considerable efforts with parties from both sides to ask them to take a long, measured view of the situation in the Strait. So, writ large, I see no reason for concern," he said.
Noting that the Chinese military "continues to move their forces around," he said, "there is no direct movement of forces that would indicate to me any increased reason for concern over the Strait."
Nevertheless, Keating urged both President Chen Shui-bian (
"President Chen has made statements that we at the Pacific Command ... think are not helpful to peace and stability in the region," he said.
"And so, in the period between the election and the inauguration, were hopeful that the new elected president, whoever he might be, and the outgoing president continue to demonstrate responsible behavior in the form of something other than potentially inflammatory rhetoric," he said.
During the hearing, Keating said he had cautioned both sides against "untoward military activity," in the upcoming period.
"The two leading candidates [in the elections] both advocate a more modest, less bellicose approach to Taiwan's dealings with the People's Republic of China [PRC]. So, we're certainly optimistic that a little bit of the steam will leave the kettle after the 22nd of March," he said.
Between the election and the swearing-in of a new president, "there will be a period of months where we'll continue to watch very carefully cross-strait tensions. I think it very unlikely that any hostilities will break out," Keating said.
He expressed disappointment in the hearing over the progress in trying to improve Sino-American military-to-military relations.
In his written opening statement, Keating said that the relationship was "not at the level we desire. Progress was decidedly uneven."
He also complained about the "perplexing cancelation of some routine activities. Nevertheless, improving the interactions between USPACOM [the US Pacific Command] and the PLA [People's Liberation Army] is critically important, in terms of maintaining stability across the Taiwan Strait and in assuring regional nations."
Turning to what Taiwan can do, Keating said, "I remain concerned about Chinese double-digit growth in annual defense spending and investment in systems which threaten Taiwan and our own capabilities ... USPACOM is encouraging Taiwan to improve its self-defense capabilities and thereby deter potential PRC aggression."
Also See: China wants to manage US policy
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,