Acting US Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Naz Durakoglu on Friday said that the US would continue to express support for Taiwan as China seeks to reduce Taiwan’s international standing.
Her statement was made in response to a letter written on Wednesday last week and addressed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which US representatives Scott Perry and Tom Tiffany urged the US Department of State to be wary of Chinese meddling in Haiti following the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise.
In their letter, the two representatives highlighted the importance of the Caribbean nation’s ties to Taiwan, which is one of its 16 remaining diplomatic allies.
“The United States will continue to express support for Taiwan publicly, collaborate with Taiwan on initiatives that demonstrate the value it brings to the international community, and encourage like-minded countries’ engagement with and public demonstrations of support for Taiwan,” Durakoglu said on Friday.
She also said the department was fully aware that China “seeks to abridge Taiwan’s international space and reduce its international standing.”
Durakoglu said the US has sent an interagency delegation to Haiti to assist with the investigation into Moise’s assassination.
Moise was killed on July 7 by a group of gunmen at his private residence in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
His wife, Martine Moise, was seriously wounded during the attack and was flown to Miami for treatment. She returned to Haiti last week to attend her husband’s funeral on Friday.
“The United States stands with the Haitian people at this difficult time, as they strive to build a safer, more democratic future,” Durakoglu said.
Taiwan and Haiti celebrated the 65th anniversary of diplomatic relations in April. Jovenel Moise last visited Taiwan in 2018 for five days.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS