The US has a strong security relationship with Taiwan and its recent legislation on military exchanges with Taiwan was not aimed at highlighting tensions across the Taiwan Strait, the US Department of State said earlier this week.
“Our policy with regard to Taiwan is exactly the same, hasn’t changed,” US Department of State deputy spokesman Mark Toner said at a daily press briefing on Tuesday. “We believe in a ‘one China’ policy. There’s been no change to that policy.”
In response to questions about the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 that US President Barack Obama signed into law on Friday last week amid strained cross-strait ties, Toner said that Washington was not seeking to highlight cross-strait tensions.
He also said the US has “a strong security relationship with Taiwan.”
The act included for the first time a section on exchanges of senior military personnel between Taiwan and the US.
The bill cleared the US Senate in a 92-7 vote on Dec. 8 after it was approved in the House of Representatives by a vote of 375-34 on Dec. 2.
Section 1284 of the act states that it is the “sense of Congress” that “the Secretary of Defense should carry out a program of exchanges of senior military officers and senior officials between the United States and Taiwan designed to improve military to military relations between the United States and Taiwan.”
It defines an exchange as “an activity, exercise, event, or observation opportunity between members of the [US] Armed Forces and officials of the Department of Defense, on the one hand, and armed forces personnel and officials of Taiwan, on the other hand.”
It remains to be seen whether or how the new US administration under Donald Trump will act on this section of the act after he formally takes office on Jan. 20.
Taiwan has said it welcomes the inclusion of military exchanges with Taiwan in the act and hopes for continued cooperation between the two sides.
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
A total lunar eclipse, an astronomical event often referred to as a “blood moon,” would be visible to sky watchers in Taiwan starting just before midnight on Sunday night, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The phenomenon is also called “blood moon” due to the reddish-orange hue it takes on as the Earth passes directly between the sun and the moon, completely blocking direct sunlight from reaching the lunar surface. The only light is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, and its red wavelengths are bent toward the moon, illuminating it in a dramatic crimson light. Describing the event as the most important astronomical phenomenon
RSS