Officially recognizing the Republic of China’s (ROC) sovereignty is “easy” and “the right thing to do,” former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said yesterday in an interview with the Taipei Times in Taipei.
“It’s easy to do. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the morally proper thing to do. It’s not hard,” said Pompeo, who served from April 2018 to January last year under the administration of former US president Donald Trump.
“I think the moment calls for clarity, transparency and a deep recognition of the central idea that we’ve all known: that Taiwan is not a part of China,” he added, joking that the nation’s issuance of a visa for him to visit illustrates “its enormous independence from mainland China.”
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
In a speech earlier in the day, Pompeo made the same assertion that the US should offer Taiwan diplomatic recognition as a “free and sovereign country,” urging the US to move away from its long-time policy of “strategic ambiguity.”
“Today I come here as a private citizen, but it is an imperative to change 50 years of ambiguity. It is about America’s diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China, while the US should continue to engage the People’s Republic of China as a sovereign government,” Pompeo said at an event organized by the government-affiliated Prospect Foundation think tank.
“America’s diplomatic recognition of 23 million freedom-loving Taiwanese people, its legal, democratically elected government can no longer be ignored, avoided or treated as secondary,” he said.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
“It is my view that the US government should immediately take necessary and long-overdue steps to do the right and obvious thing, that is, to offer the Republic of China America’s diplomatic recognition as a free and sovereign country,” he said.
“This is not about Taiwan’s future independence. It is about a recognition of an unmistakable, already existent reality,” he said. “There is no need for Taiwan to declare independence because it is already an independent nation. Its name is the Republic of China. The people and government of the United States should simply accept this fundamentally decent, morally right thing. Taiwanese people deserve the world’s respect for continuing down this free, democratic and sovereign path.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday declined to comment on Pompeo’s remarks, saying only that it respected his comments.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Taiwan-US relations have grown steadily over the past few years with bipartisan support in Washington, providing a solid foundation for Taipei to expand cooperation and partnerships between the countries across various domains, it said in a statement.
At a news conference hosted by Prospect Foundation executive director Lai I-chung (賴怡忠), Pompeo was asked to assess the likelihood of China invading Taiwan.
The level of risk across the Taiwan Strait cannot be assessed separately from Washington’s willingness to provide arms and training, or Taipei’s willingness to pay for them, Pompeo said.
“It turns on the willingness of the Western world to demonstrate that the cost for [Chinese President] Xi Jinping (習近平) engaging in that kind of activity are just too high,” he said.
Regarding whether he would run for US president in 2024, Pompeo said that he did “not know what will happen in 2023 or 2024,” but would continue on the “mission to protect democracy and freedom” in the US and around the world.
“We need to defend human dignity and sovereignty, and we need to draw this line between tyranny and democracy so cleanly and so crisply that we can preserve it for the next generation,” he said.
Asked about the purpose of his Taiwan visit, Pompeo said that he wanted to thank Taiwanese for being a good friend and partner of the US during his tenure as the US secretary of state, director of the CIA and senator.
“I wanted to come here because the people of Taiwan are so deeply wonderful and loving of the central ideas that we have in the American founding as well, this idea that liberty matters ... that freedom of speech matters,” he said.
Pompeo, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, is due to leave today.
The visit follows a 30-hour stopover by a delegation of former US security officials sent by US President Joe Biden to assure Taiwan of the US’ commitment in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS