The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday denied a statement by a former chairman, Richard Bush, that the US may try to sway vote in the 2016 presidential election, saying the US government would not intervene in Taiwan’s elections.
“He [Bush] is not a government representative anymore, so he was speaking on his own capacity and does not represent the US government,” AIT spokesperson Mark Zimmer told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview. “We would leave the election to the people of Taiwan, and would not try to intervene or influence.”
AIT officials would meet with candidates during elections, “but that’s not influencing or showing our support for particular candidates,” he said.
Bush, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told a conference on cross-strait relations in Washington on Friday that “the US government at some time and in some way will express itself about the implications of the 2016 election for US interests.”
While he did not speculate about what might happen, Bush indicated that Washington would declare a preference for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate because there were lingering doubts about the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) cross-strait policies.
Bush said that the US government, under the administrations of former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and US President Barack Obama, has shown its views on Taiwan’s presidential elections either through actions, public statements, or a newspaper interview of an anonymous official, such as was published in the Financial Times in 2012.
DPP Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), who served as Mainland Affairs Council chairman and the representative to the US during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration and became the DPP’s representative in the US in November 2012, yesterday said that Taiwanese have the right to make their own decisions.
“The people of Taiwan have the right to vote without being influenced by an outside force,” he said. “If the people of Taiwan could only make decisions in accordance with the interests of a particular country, it is not only against US foreign policy, but also against the Taiwan Relations Act [TRA].”
The US government has always expressed its support for democracy and free elections in Taiwan, and has said it would work with democratically elected governments, adding that the TRA also states that Taiwan should be involved in a dialogue with China under no threats, Wu said.
“If anyone says that the US should intervene in the election in Taiwan because of China, the person is basically saying that ‘authoritarian China may decide on a democratic election,’” Wu said. “I believe this does not represent the mainstream opinion in the US.
“China is preparing to invade Taiwan,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an exclusive interview with British media channel Sky News for a special report titled, “Is Taiwan ready for a Chinese invasion?” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in a statement. The 25-minute-long special report by Helen Ann-Smith released yesterday saw Sky News travel to Penghu, Taoyuan and Taipei to discuss the possibility of a Chinese invasion and how Taiwan is preparing for an attack. The film observed emergency response drills, interviewed baseball fans at the Taipei Dome on their views of US President
ECONOMIC BENEFITS: The imports from Belize would replace those from Honduras, whose shrimp exports have dropped 67 percent since cutting ties in 2023 Maintaining ties with Taiwan has economic benefits, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said yesterday, citing the approval of frozen whiteleg shrimp imports from Belize by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an example. The FDA on Wednesday approved the tariff-free imports from Belize after the whiteleg shrimp passed the Systematic Inspection of Imported Food, which would continue to boost mutual trade, the ministry said. Taiwan’s annual consumption of whiteleg shrimps stands at 30,000 tonnes, far exceeding domestic production, the ministry said. Taiwan used to fill the gap by importing shrimps from Honduras, but purchases slumped after Tegucigalpa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a southwestern extension of the Sanying MRT Line from New Taipei to Bade District (八德) in Taoyuan, with a goal of starting construction by late 2026. The 4.03-kilometer extension, featuring three new stations, will run from the current terminus at Yingtao Fude Station (LB12) in New Taipei City to Dannan Station (LB14), where it will connect with Taoyuan’s Green Line, New Taipei City Metro Corp said in a statement. This extension will follow the completion of core Sanying Line, a 14.29-kilometer medium-capacity system linking Tucheng (土城), Sansia (三峽)
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
RSS