The US is to “engage virtually every country” in the region in creating the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday, as he dismissed concerns that Washington had shut the door on Taiwan.
At a hearing of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, US Representative Ann Wagner asked Blinken whether Taiwan was being excluded from joining the IPEF, an initiative proposed by US President Joe Biden last year with the aim of enhancing its economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.
“I am particularly concerned that Taiwan is being shut out of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, even though the administration may try to kind of hide this by never formally closing the doors, so to speak, to participation; Taiwan’s offer to become a full member is not being accepted,” Wagner said.
Photo: AFP
Wagner said the policy to deny Taiwan’s participation in the IPEF is “self-defeating and dangerous” given that it was the US’ eighth-largest trading partner last year and one of its largest trading partners in Asia.
Blinken said “there is no such policy” to exclude Taiwan.
“There is nothing that is closing the door on anyone, including Taiwan,” he added.
The US has just started the process of launching the IPEF, including beginning conversations with a number of countries as potential partners, Blinken said.
“It’s going to be open, it’s going to be inclusive and I imagine we’re going to be engaging virtually every country in the region,” he added.
Wagner said that Taiwan had made it clear to the US in recent bilateral talks that becoming a full member of the IPEF is its “No. 1 and top request,” and Taipei has changed national laws in anticipation of starting free-trade negotiations.
She urged Blinken to send more reaffirming messages to Taiwan.
“As a rule of law, democracy and a top global trading partner, Taiwan should certainly be a top priority for the framework,” Wagner said. “But instead, this administration is marginalizing Taiwan and showing the Chinese Communist Party that the United States is deterred from working with a critical partner.”
Similar concerns have been raised by other US lawmakers.
A bipartisan group of 200 US representatives on March 30 published a letter addressed to US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) to petition for Taiwan’s inclusion in the IPEF.
Reuters cited unnamed sources in a March 31 story as saying that Raimondo told a closed-door meeting of the US Senate Finance Committee the week before that the administration was not considering Taiwan’s inclusion at this time.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS