“Taiwan is not a problem. It’s a friend,” the Washington Post said on Thursday on its op-ed page.
American Enterprise Institute security studies expert Gary Schmitt wrote the article, which said that the US should improve military, economic and diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
“Given Taiwan’s democracy, it is also the right thing to do,” Schmitt wrote.
“I have already heard that some members of Congress support it,” a Washington-based Taiwan-watcher said.
“I don’t expect it will have any immediate impact, but it has put Taiwan on a lot of radar screens,” he said about the article.
The article said that Washington’s “one China” policy is a relic of a bygone era, adding that “it seems we can bring Cuba in from the cold, but not Taiwan.”
Schmitt srote that US policymakers see Taiwan as a problem, but that it should be seen as a contributor to the US strategic position in Asia.
He said that Taiwan is a model of democratic governance, an important trading partner and home to some of the world’s most innovative companies.
Taiwan is sitting astride vital sea-trade lanes and that an intelligent defense plan would help build a key link in East Asia’s first island chain, Schmitt wrote.
Such a plan, he said, would lessen the ability of Chinese air and naval forces to move into the broader Pacific and threaten US forces at sea and on Guam.
“US policy toward Taiwan remains stuck in neutral because of a reluctance to put aside the fiction of ‘one China,’” Schmitt wrote.
“During her campaign and time as president-elect, Tsai [Ing-wen (蔡英文)] has made it clear that she has no intention of roiling the waters with the People’s Republic of China by pushing forward with an explicit claim of independence,” he wrote. “But there is little doubt that a US policy to further normalize relations with Taiwan would increase tensions with Beijing.”
Schmitt said it is an “illusion” to think there is a way forward that does not involve tension with China.
“The only question is whether we use all of our assets or fail to, as the Chinese employ all of theirs,” Schmitt wrote.
“Answering this question is all the more urgent in light of the more assertive and ambitious policies of China’s current leader, [President] Xi Jinping [習近平],” he added.
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
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
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