There are growing calls in Washington for the US to take a harder line with China that could benefit Taiwan.
US House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower Chairman Randy Forbes has published an article in the National Review titled: “It’s time to rethink how we talk about China.”
Forbes, who is also co-chairman of the Congressional China Caucus, claims that Beijing’s “extravagant” territorial claims and militarized response to its neighbors’ concerns reflect a serious challenge to freedom of the seas.
He said that for years, the US has spoken softly to avoid provoking or antagonizing Beijing.
“It seems that the same Chinese leaders who ruthlessly suppress internal dissent and engage in a systematic campaign of territorial aggrandizement are too sensitive to hear open and honest pronouncements from US officials,” Forbes said.
The mild US reaction comes at the expense of longstanding friends in the region, such as Taiwan, and US values such as human rights and religious liberty, he said.
Forbes repeats arguments he made last month in speeches and congressional comments that the US should react in part to China’s aggression by increasing ties with Taiwan.
“While the US is legally obligated to provide Taiwan the weapons needed to ensure its survival, the US government regularly forces Taipei into a series of small-scale humiliations in the hopes of buying Beijing’s goodwill,” he said.
“The list of indignities imposed upon a close partner in the name of placating China is as long as it is ridiculous,” he added.
At the same time, Politico magazine said that some US naval commanders are at odds with the administration of US President Barack Obama over whether to sail US Navy ships into a disputed area of the South China Sea.
It is a debate that pits some military leaders who want to exercise their freedom of navigation against administration officials and diplomats trying to manage a delicate phase in US-China relations, Politico said.
Writing in The National Interest magazine, American Foreign Policy Council director for Asian security Jeff Smith said: “Today, Washington is confronting the dreadful realization that with each passing year the goals of political liberalization and peaceful integration appear to grow more distant, while the prospect for conflict with China draws nearer.”
A “growing chorus” of US experts is imploring Washington to abandon its informed engagement strategy for a more muscular balancing strategy, Smith wrote.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,