Unguarded comments about Taiwan have entered the flap surrounding Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s controversial remarks on low-income Americans and the dangers of a Palestinian state.
The Romney quotes — largely unreported by the US media — seem to reflect a pessimistic view of Taiwan’s future, with little strategic thought or planning.
Answering a question about the possibility of an independent Palestinian State, Romney said: “You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem.”
“We live with that in China and Taiwan,” Romney continued. “All right, we have a potentially volatile situation, but we sort of live with it. And we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it. We don’t go to war to try and resolve it imminently.”
The remarks were made at a private off-the-record fundraising dinner in Florida nearly four months ago.
Someone at the dinner secretly videotaped Romney and the damaging tape was released this week.
The US press first concentrated on the Republican candidate’s comments that Palestinians “have no interest” in peace with Israel.
However, yesterday newspaper front pages were dominated by Romney’s further remarks on the videotape that nearly half of Americans receive government benefits and do not pay federal income taxes.
He said that he “doesn’t worry about those people” and that they see themselves as victims.
The incident could severely damage the Romney campaign and according to the New York Times has given the Democrats new ammunition to claim he is out of touch with the needs and values of the middle class.
Polls are already reflecting a drop in support for the Republican candidate.
In the midst of this political furor, Romney’s words about Taiwan were overlooked. However, by Wednesday night in Washington, Capitol Hill was beginning to take notice. Republican sources close to the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee said they were “disappointed” that Romney had no strategy for dealing with Taiwan’s future, but was simply waiting for something to happen.
“We would have expected Romney to have a more proactive and forward-leaning approach,” Formosa Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) official Coen Blaauw said. “The preservation of Taiwan’s democracy and right to self-determination is essential to US geostrategic interests.”
“It’s not enough to kick the ball down the field and hope that someday the problem will resolve itself,” Blaauw said. “Previous statements from his campaign signaled a preference for taking a stronger stance against China in general and against military aggression in particular.”
The Republican Party platform — largely written by Romney advisers — opposes any unilateral steps by either side to alter the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait on the principle that all issues regarding the island’s future must be resolved peacefully, through dialogue and be agreeable to the people of Taiwan.
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: A US Air Force KC-135 tanker came less than 1,000 feet of an EVA plane and was warned off by a Taipei air traffic controller, a report said A US aerial refueling aircraft came very close to an EVA Airways jet in the airspace over southern Taiwan, a military aviation news Web site said. A report published by Alert 5 on Tuesday said that automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast (ADS-B) data captured by planfinder.net on Wednesday last week showed a US Air Force KC-135 tanker “coming less than 1,000 feet [305m] vertically with EVA Air flight BR225 as both aircraft crossed path south of Taiwan” that morning. The report included an audio recording of a female controller from the Taipei air traffic control center telling the unidentified aircraft that it was
A series of discussions on the legacy of martial law and authoritarianism are to be held at the Taipei International Book Exhibition this month, featuring findings and analysis by the Transitional Justice Commission. The commission and publisher Book Republic organized the series, entitled “Escaping the Nation’s Labyrinth of Memory: What Authoritarian Symbols and Records Can Tell Us,” to help people navigate narratives through textual analysis and comparisons with other nations. The four-day series is to begin on Thursday next week with a discussion between commission Chairwoman Yang Tsui (楊翠), Polish-language translator Lin Wei-yun (林蔚昀), and Polish author and artist Pawel Gorecki comparing
MOVING OUT: A former professor said that rent and early education costs in Taipei are the nation’s highest, which makes it difficult for young people to start families The population of Taipei last year fell to the lowest in 23 years due to high rent, more transportation options and the expansion of northern cities into a single metropolis, academics and city officials said on Monday. Data released this month by the Ministry of the Interior showed that the capital was home to 2,602,418 people last year, down 42,623 from 2019. The decline is second only to 1993, when the population fell by 42,828 people, while Taipei’s population was the lowest it has been since 1997. Taipei saw the biggest drop among the six special municipalities, while Taoyuan led the group in
A US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Theodore Roosevelt has entered the South China Sea to promote “freedom of the seas,” the US military said yesterday, as tensions between China and Taiwan raise concerns in Washington. US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the strike group entered the South China Sea on Saturday, the same day Taiwan reported a large incursion of Chinese bombers and fighter jets into its air defense identification zone near the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). The US military said the carrier strike group was in the South China Sea, a large part of which
RSS