The Taiwan Policy Act of 2011 is back on track in the US House of Representatives after being held up for weeks on a procedural issue.
It is now likely to come to a vote late next month or early May and is expected to pass the Republican-controlled House without problem.
The bill will then move to the Democrat-controlled US Senate, where it faces serious obstacles. Nevertheless, supporters say that it will still serve as a signal of strong support for Taiwan from the House.
To overcome objections from some members of the House Judiciary Committee, the part of the bill dealing with the US’ visa-waiver program has been removed.
The visa-waiver program will continue to proceed independently and is expected to be implemented before the end of the year.
Taiwan was nominated to the program in December last year and the move has bipartisan support and is backed by US President Barack Obama.
However, some Judiciary Committee members saw the inclusion of visa-waiver program language in the Taiwan Policy Act as a complicating factor and to let the act proceed, the issue was struck from the Taiwan Policy Act.
US congressional sources said US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairperson of the House Foreign Relations Committee, now wants to see the act passed by a floor vote before she leaves to visit Taiwan on May 18.
“We are very pleased that this important piece of legislation is moving forward,” said Terri Giles, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Formosa Foundation.
The act has about 30 cosponsors and in no way amends or supersedes the Taiwan Relations Act.
It clarifies US foreign policy as supporting Taiwan and the human rights of its people; it calls for all US and Taiwanese officials to be able to meet normally; it supports a comprehensive extradition agreement and promotes the sale of F-16C/D aircraft to Taiwan.
Among other provisions, the act calls for the negotiation of a free-trade agreement with Taiwan and asks the US Department of State to continue its program to ensure meaningful participation by Taiwan in international organizations.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS