Former US national security adviser John Bolton on Saturday called for US troops to be stationed in Taiwan, harkening back to the allies’ arrangement prior to 1979.
Given the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Bolton called for Taiwan to be protected through political and military deterrence.
That means increasing defense budgets and tightening coordination between the two militaries, he said.
Photo: screen grab from the Internet
It could also mean stationing troops in Taiwan as the US did before formal diplomatic relations were severed in 1979, a move Bolton said would benefit both sides.
Bolton, who served from 2018 to 2019 under former US president Donald Trump, made the comments in a prerecorded address to the Global Taiwan National Affairs Symposium organized by Taiwanese independence groups.
The call comes after Foreign Policy magazine in November last year reported that US troop numbers in Taiwan — while present for more than a decade — had increased since Trump’s presidency thanks to “intense lobbying” by Bolton.
Bolton rejected calls to create an Indo-Pacific “NATO” due to historical and contextual differences with Europe, but considered the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue a positive step toward countering Chinese aggression in the region.
The more creative the approach, the better, he said, praising closer military cooperation through groups such as the AUKUS alliance between the US, UK and Australia, which he suggested Japan join to ensure greater flexibility.
Bolton also agreed with former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s suggestion to station US nuclear weapons in Japan to make it a more important regional player.
Taiwan faces an excellent opportunity, as the global community is becoming more aware of the Chinese threat and is more willing to extend a helping hand, he said.
As for growing calls for the US to abandon its long-held policy of “strategic ambiguity,” Bolton said there is already legal precedent to form an alliance under the Taiwan Relations Act.
Formally recognizing Taiwan’s independence is important politically and militarily, Bolton said, adding that this view was considered extreme in 2000, when he called for diplomatic recognition in the Taipei Times.
The US has long been one of Taiwan’s greatest friends, and with assistance from others such as Japan, help for Taiwan is limitless, he said.
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
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘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