A new bipartisan bill calling on the Pentagon to provide a detailed report on the cross-strait balance of maritime power has been introduced into the US Congress.
The Asia-Pacific Region Priority Act contains three major sections and 14 specific recommendations aimed at enhancing the US’ focus, understanding and capabilities for “sustaining peace and prosperity” in the region.
The recommendation concerning Taiwan is in a section on security trends and would require an analysis of cross-strait naval forces.
A Congressional source who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the subject said that if the bill passes, it could emphasize Taiwan’s need for diesel submarines.
“Any report on the balance of naval power in the Taiwan Strait will highlight Taiwan’s lack of submarines,” he said, adding that this could increase congressional support for helping Taiwan obtain diesel submarines, which are no longer made in the US.
“We will have the [US] Department of Defense submit a report on the cross-strait balance of maritime forces between China and Taiwan and we will encourage an annual report of the Chinese military to include activities of the State Oceanic Administration because the Chinese are now incorporating many of their activities with their coast guard,” Seapower subcommittee chairman Representative J. Randy Forbes said.
Forbes said that new analysis was necessary to carry the US’ defensive strategy into the next decade.
Forbes said the bill called for number of studies — including the Taiwan maritime balance with China — because they had not yet been done comprehensively.
Asked why the Chinese coast guard would be included in the maritime balance, Forbes said: “Oftentimes when you talk about the Chinese military and expenditures, that’s only a fraction of what they’re actually spending.
“If you look at recent activities they’ve had, they’ve started incorporating their coast guard. We at least need an assessment of that so we know what the coast guard is doing and how they’re doing it. We think they have been changing how they’ve utilized their coast guard,” he said.
The new bill supports greater US focus on the Asia-Pacific, condemns coercive attempts to handle maritime disputes, reaffirms commitment to the US-Japan alliance and asks for a report on US-Korea security and trade cooperation.
It also calls for a study of Chinese naval modernization, asks the Pentagon to establish an office to oversee unmanned defense systems and directs the US Secretary of Defense to identify opportunities for increasing missile defense cooperation with allies.
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
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
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