The US’ Taiwan policy act (TPA) cleared a US Senate committee review on Wednesday last week. US Senator Bob Menendez, who chairs the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the TPA as “the most comprehensive restructuring of US policy towards Taiwan since the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.”
In mid-July, a scheduled markup of the act was postponed at the request of the Republican Party to allow more time for review. Last month, the White House requested that the committee “slow walk” the review process.
US Senator Chris Murphy of the Democratic Party expressed reservations over several sections of the act, probably under pressure from the White House. The bill was postponed again as the US Senate prioritized a motion to allow Finland and Sweden to join NATO.
The White House is clearly uneasy about the bill. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan expressed reservations over several sections of the TPA, while Menendez said that the committee had already engaged in repeated dialogue with the White House and reached a consensus.
Following further discussions with the White House, Menendez stated that efforts were made to eliminate concerns, but that the TPA still packed a punch. Predictably, after the bill had passed committee review, Menendez stated that several symbolic clauses had been amended, but that the TPA remained unchanged in substance.
The postponement of the TPA for a second time last month coincided with the visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Days prior to Pelosi’s visit, US President Joe Biden held a telephone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), during which Xi allegedly requested that Biden block Pelosi’s visit.
A report by the Washington Post revealed that Pelosi had told the White House that only a direct request from the president, or Taiwan retracting its invitation, would make her consider canceling the visit.
Biden did not make a direct request to Pelosi. It must have been embarrassing for Biden to have had it publicly revealed that his administration had put pressure on Pelosi in an effort to curry favor with Xi, and to know that it could affect the Democratic Party’s prospects at the midterm elections in November.
This behind the scenes information reveals that there might be something to the rumor that Pelosi sent a telegram to Taiwanese Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) to confirm that the invitation had not been revoked. Taipei stood with Pelosi, refused to back down and her historic visit went ahead. This initially sparked fears that the White House might slow the TPA’s passage to calm the situation.
However, China’s extreme reaction to Pelosi’s visit fired up the international community and created an unprecedented level of support for Taiwan.
China has escalated its attacks against the TPA, turning it into a touchstone issue. Supporting or opposing the TPA has thus become a proxy for US toughness or weakness against China. Xi’s intervention therefore had an indirect effect on the act’s passage of its first reading by the committee. Committee members voted 17 to 5 in favor of the TPA in a bipartisan vote. Murphy and US Senator Ed Markey, who was a member of Pelosi’s delegation to Taiwan, voted against the TPA, which could open the door to further negotiations with the executive branch.
There is still a long way to go before the TPA is written into law, and its passage happens to coincide with midterm elections in the US, local elections in Taiwan and the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress. The bill’s future is far from certain.
Chen Yung-chang is a company manager.
Translated by Edward Jones
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
The inter-Korean relationship, long defined by national division, offers the clearest mirror within East Asia for cross-strait relations. Yet even there, reunification language is breaking down. The South Korean government disclosed on Wednesday last week that North Korea’s constitutional revision in March had deleted references to reunification and added a territorial clause defining its border with South Korea. South Korea is also seriously debating whether national reunification with North Korea is still necessary. On April 27, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung marked the eighth anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration, the 2018 inter-Korean agreement in which the two Koreas pledged to
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly widespread in workplaces, some people stand to benefit from the technology while others face lower wages and fewer job opportunities. However, from a longer-term perspective, as AI is applied more extensively to business operations, the personnel issue is not just about changes in job opportunities, but also about a structural mismatch between skills and demand. This is precisely the most pressing issue in the current labor market. Tai Wei-chun (戴偉峻), director-general of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Innovation at the Institute for Information Industry, said in a recent interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times
RSS