US President Joe Biden on Friday signed into law a sweeping US$1.5 trillion spending bill, which includes a ban on the use of any maps by the US Department of State and its foreign operations that “inaccurately” depict Taiwan as part of China.
The Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2022, stipulates that “none of the funds made available by this Act should be used to create, procure, or display any map that inaccurately depicts the territory and social and economic system of Taiwan and the islands or island groups administered by Taiwan authorities.”
The bipartisan Consolidated Appropriations Act, an omnibus spending bill, is to fund federal government agencies for the remainder of fiscal 2022 to avoid an immediate government shutdown. The US Senate on Thursday approved the bill 68-31 and sent it to the White House.
Photo: Screen grab from the National Football League Communications’ Twitter account
The appropriation act was proposed in July last year by lawmakers including Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany, Steve Chabot and Scott Perry, who are friendly to Taiwan.
The bill that same month passed the US House of Representatives by a 217-212 vote, but did not move beyond the Senate and was instead packaged into the omnibus spending bill following revisions.
The original bill had stipulated: “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to create, procure, or display any map that depicts Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Wuciou [烏坵, islands administered by Kinmen County], Green Island (綠島) or Orchid Island [Lanyu, 蘭嶼] as part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China.”
Tiffany told the House that since the 1970s, the US has adopted a “one China” policy to accommodate Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China.
However, he said “Beijing’s bogus argument that Taiwan is part of Communist China” should be abandoned, adding that the bill would “require honest maps that stop perpetuating the ‘one China’ lie.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday thanked the Biden administration and US lawmakers for supporting Taiwan-US relations.
The ban on inaccurate maps shows that the US “recognizes Taiwan as not being a part of China and is willing to take legislative action to ensure truthful depictions of the situation across the Taiwan Strait,” it said in a statement.
Legislative Speaker You Si-kun said on Facebook that the ban would prevent US taxpayer money being spent on maps that show Taiwan as a part of China and instead use the funds to support “honest maps.”
“Taiwan is not a part of China. We thank US lawmakers in the US Senate and House of Representatives for their nonpartisan support of Taiwan and look forward to the growth of Taiwan-US relations,” he wrote.
The 2,741-page Consolidated Appropriations Act would also provide US$13.6 billion in emergency aid to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion, as well as weapons to NATO’s eastern European members.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the aid would include US$1 billion in military assistance, such as Javelin and Stinger missiles, to cement the alliance’s military strength.
The financial assistance also aims to fend off cyberattacks from Russia, he added.
Additional reporting by Yang Cheng-yu and Chung Li-hua
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant