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Pelosi sent a telegram to Taiwanese Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) to confirm that the invitation had not been revoked.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
A gap appears to be emerging between Washington’s foreign policy elites and the broader American public on how the United States should respond to China’s rise. From my vantage working at a think tank in Washington, DC, and through regular travel around the United States, I increasingly experience two distinct discussions. This divergence — between America’s elite hawkishness and public caution — may become one of the least appreciated and most consequential external factors influencing Taiwan’s security environment in the years ahead. Within the American policy community, the dominant view of China has grown unmistakably tough. Many members of Congress, as
The Hong Kong government on Monday gazetted sweeping amendments to the implementation rules of Article 43 of its National Security Law. There was no legislative debate, no public consultation and no transition period. By the time the ink dried on the gazette, the new powers were already in force. This move effectively bypassed Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. The rules were enacted by the Hong Kong chief executive, in conjunction with the Committee for Safeguarding National Security — a body shielded from judicial review and accountable only to Beijing. What is presented as “procedural refinement” is, in substance, a shift away from
Taiwan no longer wants to merely manufacture the chips that power artificial intelligence (AI). It aims to build the software, platforms and services that run on them. Ten major AI infrastructure projects, a national cloud computing center in Tainan, the sovereign language model Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine, five targeted industry verticals — from precision medicine to smart agriculture — and the goal of ranking among the world’s top five in computing power by 2040: The roadmap from “Silicon Island” to “Smart Island” is drawn. The question is whether the western plains, where population, industry and farmland are concentrated, have the water and
The shifting geopolitical tectonic plates of this year have placed Beijing in a profound strategic dilemma. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) prepares for a high-stakes summit with US President Donald Trump, the traditional power dynamics of the China-Japan-US triangle have been destabilized by the diplomatic success of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington. For the Chinese leadership, the anxiety is two-fold: There is a visceral fear of being encircled by a hardened security alliance, and a secondary risk of being left in a vulnerable position by a transactional deal between Washington and Tokyo that might inadvertently empower Japan
RSS