Members of a subcommittee of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday decried China’s live-fire exercise in the Taiwan Strait yesterday as “cheap ... and tawdry,” saying that if it was a warning, it would be ignored.
Many Taiwanese hope to maintain the “status quo,” but that is already changing due to China’s rise bringing about a threat, not only to the region, but also to Taiwan’s democracy, US Representative Ted Yoho said.
The US should work with Taiwan to find a solution that would provide a sense of safety for Taiwanese, as well as maintaining Taiwan’s democracy and economic liberty, Yoho said.
Photo: CNA
The US should reconsider its “one China” policy and increase interactions with Taiwan, while encouraging Beijing to interact with Taipei without prerequisites and to abandon the use of force, Project 2049 Institute executive director Mark Stokes said.
Stokes also suggested that the administration of US President Donald Trump assess the possibilities of realizing normal, stable and constructive long-term US-Taiwan relations, and expand interactions within the framework of the Taiwan Relations Act and the Taiwan Travel Act.
Julian Ku (古舉倫), a professor of constitutional law at Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Dean School of Law, said the US has been “surprisingly ineffective” in the past regarding its position on Taiwan, despite US Congress on multiple occasions passing motions supporting Taiwan’s participation in international organizations.
The US should clearly state that the status of Taiwan must be determined through nonviolent and noncoercive means, Ku said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
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