The US was expected to issue a statement yesterday congratulating incumbentPresident Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) after the Central Election Commissiondeclared him the winner of last Saturday's presidential election, a State
Department official told the "Taipei Times". No such statement had been received at the time of going to press.
It was not clear whether the message would come from the State Department or from the White House, but the White House is considered the most likely to issue the statement, as the Clinton White House did when Chen won the election in 2000.
Earlier in the week, the State Department indicated that it would wait until all the challenges launched by the pan-blue alliance were settled before Washington would congratulate the winner.
The decision to issue a statement yesterday is seen by some as reflecting the fact that the Bush administration now understands the election process much better than it did right after the election, since the challenges issued by the pan-blue camp took the legal and constitutional issues into new ground.
Over the weekend, in the wake of the final vote on Saturday night, the Bush administration issued a statement congratulating the “people of Taiwan”for the successful election, withholding its congratulations for Chen, even though the unofficial results showed him to be the winner.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, in his regular daily pressbriefing on Monday, noted that there were “a number of decisions pending”in Taiwan after the election that have to be settled through legal processes, and “we're just comfortable waiting for those processes to work
themselves out, and not for us to say who won, but for them to tell us who won.”
Since then, the administration has apparently decided it would issue its congratulatory statement as soon after the commission's certification of a winner as possible, even though the legal and constitutional challenges are
still unresolved.
CLOSURES: Several forest recreation areas have been closed as a precaution, while some ferry and flight services have been suspended or rescheduled A land warning for Tropical Storm Danas was issued last night at 8:30pm, as the storm’s outer bands began bringing heavy rain to southeastern regions, including Hualien and Taitung counties, and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島), according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). As of 9:15pm, the storm was approximately 330km west-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, moving north-northeast at 10-20kph, the CWA reported. A sea warning had already been issued at 8:30am yesterday. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 83kph, with gusts of up to 108kph, according to the CWA. As of 9:30pm last night, Kaohsiung, Tainan,
POWERFUL DETERRENT: Precision fire and dispersed deployment of units would allow Taiwanese artillery to inflict heavy casualties in an invasion, a researcher said The nation’s military has boosted its self-defense capability with the establishment of a new company equipped with the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). The company, part of the army’s 58th Artillery Command, is Taiwan’s first HIMARS unit. Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄), who presided over the formation ceremony in Taichung on Friday, called the unit a significant addition to the nation’s defensive strength, saying it would help deter adversaries from starting a war. The unit is made up of top-performing soldiers who received training in the US, according to the Ministry of National Defense. The HIMARS can be equipped with
STRONG WINDS: Without the Central Mountain Range as a shield, people should be ready for high-speed winds, CWA weather forecaster Liu Yu-chi said Danas was yesterday upgraded to a typhoon and could grow stronger as it moves closely along the nation’s west coastline, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Hsinchu and Chiayi cities, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Hsinchu, Miaoli, Changhua, Yunlin, Nantou, Chiayi, Penghu and Pingtung counties have canceled work and school today. Work and school in Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Yilan, Taitung, Hualien, Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties would continue as usual, although offices and schools would be closed in Taoyuan’s Luju (蘆竹), Dayuan (大園), Guangyin (觀音) and Sinwu (新屋) districts. As of 5pm yesterday, the typhoon’s
UNILATERAL: The move from China’s aviation authority comes despite a previous 2015 agreement that any changes to flight paths would be done by consensus The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday slammed Beijing for arbitrarily opening the M503 flight route’s W121 connecting path, saying that such unilateral conduct disrespected the consensus between both sides and could destabilize the Taiwan Strait and the wider region. The condemnation came after the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) earlier yesterday announced it “has activated the W121 connecting path of the M503 flight route,” meaning that west-to-east flights are now permitted along the path. The newly activated west-to-east route is intended to “alleviate the pressure caused by the increase of flights,” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency quoted China’s Taiwan Affairs Office
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