The US on Tuesday welcomed the various olive branches that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) offered to China in his inaugural address, and said it looked forward to a vibrant US-Taiwan relationship during Ma's presidency.
In a short statement in his regular press briefing, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack congratulated Ma on his inauguration and said “we look forward to working with Taiwan’s new leaders and maintaining the vibrancy in our economic and people-to-people relationship.”
“We welcome initiatives to reduce tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.
McCormack echoed US President George W. Bush’s words in his message of congratulations issued just hours after Ma’s election victory in March, calling for renewed discussions between China and Taiwan.
In that statement, Bush urged both sides to “build the essential foundation for peace and stability by pursuing dialogue through all available means ... I believe the election provides a fresh opportunity for both sides to reach out and engage one another in peacefully resolving their differences.”
McCormack started off his press conference with the statement on Ma’s inauguration, an indication of the importance the Bush administration places on Ma’s presidency after eight years of tense relations under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
But later, when asked whether Ma’s election signaled a new era in US-Taiwan relations and cross-strait relations, McCormack refused to comment.
In his inaugural address, Ma made several pledges that will certainly cheer the Bush administration, including his vow to seek “reconciliation and truce” with China in cross-strait and international issues.
He also repeated his idea of a peace accord with China, which he first mentioned during a visit to Washington in March 2006. In a major speech during that trip, he called for a 30 to 50-year accord with Beijing to assure long-term peace across the Strait.
Ma’s promise to maintain the cross-strait status quo and not to tamper with the Constitution will be welcomed by Washington, which was concerned by what it saw as Chen’s efforts to unilaterally change the status quo by amending the Constitution and by other initiatives.
Ma also recalled Bush’s telephone call to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in March, in which both sides agreed that the so-called “1992 consensus” would be the proper way to navigate through cross-strait differences.
Ma’s promise to “rationalize the defense budget” and buy needed US weaponry should satisfy those in the Pentagon and others in Washington who have been frustrated by the reticence of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature to fund purchases of the arms package approved by Bush in April 2001.
At a reception in honor of the inauguration held by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) at Taiwan’s Washington mansion, Twin Oaks, on Tuesday, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Managing Director Barbara Schrage praised the peaceful transfer of power and expressed confidence that US-Taiwan friendship will grow under Ma.
“This second peaceful transition of power is an important milestone in Taiwan’s democratic development and maturity,” she said. “It demonstrates that democratic institutions and processes in Taiwan are firmly established. Clearly, Taiwan stands as a showcase for democracy in the world. The people of Taiwan have much to be proud of.”
Describing the many shared values between the US and Taiwan, Schrage said, “that close interaction and shared values have fostered a deep friendship between the United States and Taiwan and I’m confident that this will continue to grow in the future.”
In his comments, Representative to Washington Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said the presidential election demonstrated that “Taiwan has indeed successfully transformed itself into a fully-fledged democracy,” citing Bush’s comments in recent years to that effect.
Citing Taiwan’s role as “one of the United States’ most cooperative partners” in a wide range of international issues, including counter-terrorism, Wu said, “as Taiwan develops into a full-fledged democracy, we are eager to collaborate with the US to promote human rights and freedom.”
Meanwhile in Taipei, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said yesterday that former AIT director Richard Bush delivered a letter written by Senator Barack Obama to Ma yesterday.
Obama, a Democratic presidential hopeful, said he hoped to see Beijing respond to Ma’s presidency more positively, adding that Ma would bring stability to both sides of the Taiwan Strait and strengthen Taiwan-US relations.
Wang said Obama thought the March presidential election was a step forward toward a mature democracy and that he hoped Beijing would view Ma’s presidency in a constructive manner.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY KO SHU-LING
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