Washington sources said that both the White House and the US Department of State were taken by surprise at the depth of defeat suffered by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the nine-in-one elections on Saturday last week.
However, US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US would continue to encourage Beijing and Taipei to continue their “constructive dialogue.”
The US view on cross-strait relations had not changed, she said.
Former Pentagon official Dan Blumenthal said the elections showed that Taiwan was “drifting away” from China, and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would have to deal with it.
“Xi is a strongman — it would be unwise to believe he will simply let Taiwan drift,” said Blumenthal, who is now director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
The only way Xi could “reunify the motherland” was by force and coercion since no one in Taiwan would simply give away their democratic freedoms to a repressive Chinese Communist Party (CCP), he said.
Writing in a blog for Foreign Policy magazine’s Web site, he said the 2016 presidential elections in Taiwan would be a major test for Xi.
“Will he risk serious tension in the Asia-Pacific to try and affect who becomes Taiwan’s president?” Blumenthal wrote.
The US would have to reckon with a “structurally unstable” situation in the Taiwan Strait, he said.
“For Washington, this means the Taiwan Strait remains the main flashpoint in the Asia Pacific,” he said. “It will need to deter a China that may increasingly externalize its problems. Washington’s China-Taiwan policy must find a way to keep China focused on solving internal problems, protecting the democratic freedoms of the Taiwanese, while playing for time.”
The Taiwanese feared a political association with China, exacerbated by Xi’s handling of Hong Kong, he said.
He criticized US President Barack Obama’s administration for failing to “push hard” for Taiwan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and for offering only “tepid” support for Taiwan’s quest for submarines.
Blumenthal said support for unification with China would “continue to wither away” in Taiwan and that the next presidential contest would be about how best to manage de facto independence.
His views were echoed by a reports in other US media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, which predicted that as Taiwan moved toward the January 2016 presidential elections, “expect tensions to rise across the Taiwan Strait.”
The newspaper also warned that the danger of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ascent following the nine-in-one elections was that it could freeze trade liberalization not just with China, but with all other countries, “with disastrous consequences for Taiwan’s export economy.”
US government sources, speaking on the condition that they not be named because they were not authorized to comment on the elections, said there was a real danger of growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait if Taiwan moved toward greater independence as the DPP’s influence increases.
The New York Times said the election results signaled that the KMT “will be hard-pressed to retain the presidency.”
Bloomberg news service quoted New York-based Park Strategies senior vice president Sean King as saying: “If opposition Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) can bring her party’s notoriously bickering factions together just long enough to draft a mainland China policy that doesn’t scare off the middle of the electorate, she may very well find herself elected president 14 months from now.”
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
Taiwan is to extend its visa-waiver program for Philippine passport holders for another year, starting on Aug. 1, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said on Friday. Lin made the announcement during a reception in Taipei marking the 127th anniversary of Philippine independence and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The decision reflected Taiwan’s commitment to deepening exchanges with the Philippines, the statement cited Lin as saying, adding that it was a key partner under the New Southbound Policy launched in 2016. Lin also expressed hope
RSS