A list of US Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s top advisers on Asia — containing the names of several experts on Taiwan-US relations — has been leaked to the media.
Such lists are normally confidential at this point in an election campaign.
The list of about 50 names was published this week by the well-respected newsletter The Nelson Report.
It revealed that Center for a New American Security senior fellow Mira Rapp-Hooper has been appointed coordinator of the “Hillary for America Asia Policy Working Group.”
The group is chaired by former US assistant secretary of state for East Asia Kurt Campbell and Harvard academic and political scientist Joseph Nye.
Among the members of the group with direct Taiwan experience — as listed by the Nelson Report — are Center for Strategic and International Studies senior adviser for Asia Bonnie Glaser, and two former directors for Asian affairs at the National Security Council — Evan Medeiros and Jeffrey Bader.
The group is continuing to grow and more experts are expected to join it over the next few months.
Former US secretary of state Clinton is heavily favored to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
There is speculation that Campbell will be given a senior foreign policy job if Clinton wins the general election in November.
In congressional testimony, Campbell has said that it was critical to build comprehensive, durable and unofficial relations with Taiwan and that the bedrock of that friendship was the security relationship.
He has called the Taiwan Relations Act one of the most important acts of “legislative leadership” and foreign policy in US history.
Nye has urged Taiwan to follow smart strategies that combine both hard and soft power.
He has said Taiwan must have sufficient military strength, but that ultimate protection lies in relations with the US, which depend on Taiwan’s soft power.
Nye said the US will never sell out Taiwan for something it wants from China as long as Taiwan stands for democracy and human rights.
Rapp-Hooper has praised Taiwan, saying: “The surprisingly successful history of the US-Taiwan policy is a diplomatic story as much as anything else, and a testament to how deliberate, cautious ambiguity can bring balance to seemingly irreconcilable political forces.”
There have been reports that Medeiros was behind the White House decision several years ago to deny sales of US F-16 warplanes to Taiwan.
Now serving as head of Euroasia Group’s research on Asia, Medeiros is said to have been a key architect of US President Barack Obama’s Asian “rebalance” strategy.
Bader has said that the US would “not even consider” abandoning Taiwan and that Taiwan’s security influenced the stability of the region and served as a balancing power vis-a-vis Japan and China.
Glaser was in Taipei earlier this month for high-level talks.
“Regardless of which political party is in power in Taiwan, the US has a deep and abiding interest in the preservation of Taiwan’s security and democracy,” she recently testified before the US Congress.
“The US can and should do more to advocate for Taiwan’s increased participation in international organizations, especially those that would enhance the safety and welfare of Taiwan’s citizens as well as regional and global security,” Glaser said.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS