Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo yesterday said that he was willing to travel to Taiwan with US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Nancy, I’ll go with you. I’m banned in China, but not freedom-loving Taiwan,” Pompeo wrote on Twitter. “See you there!”
Pompeo — who visited Taiwan for the first time in March and has urged the US to officially recognize it as a free, independent nation, and establish official diplomatic ties — made the comment amid frothy rhetoric from China and contradictory signals coming out of Washington over Pelosi’s possible visit.
Photo: AFP
The Financial Times on Monday last week first reported that Pelosi was planning to visit Taiwan next month.
Pelosi has not confirmed when, or even if, she would visit.
Should the trip be confirmed, Pelosi would be the first sitting US House speaker to visit Taiwan since 1997, when her predecessor Newt Gingrich of the Republican Party traveled to Taipei and met then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) during another period of tense cross-strait relations.
File photo: AP
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday last week said that a visit to Taiwan by Pelosi would seriously undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the US would bear the consequences of its response.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday last week said that he plans to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) by the end of the month. Biden appeared to cast doubt on Pelosi’s reported trip to Taiwan.
“I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now, but I don’t know what the status of it is,” Biden told reporters.
The Financial Times on Saturday cited sources as saying that China has issued stark private warnings to the Biden administration, adding that the private rhetoric suggested a possible military response.
China yesterday confirmed that it had delivered sterner warnings to US officials about Pelosi’s possible visit to Taiwan.
“The Chinese side has made it clear to the US on many occasions that it is firmly opposed to Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. We are fully prepared,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) told a media briefing.
“If the US goes its own way, China will certainly take firm and forceful measures to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the United States should be held responsible for any serious consequences,” he said.
A number of Republican US lawmakers have urged Pelosi to proceed with the trip.
Among them were US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry.
“We strongly encourage you to reject the objections of China’s rulers and President Biden and proceed with your planned trip,” they said in a joint letter on Friday. “As the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, you should never have to ask a foreign dictatorship or the State Department for permission to talk to America’s friends and allies.”
They also called on Pelosi to convene a floor vote to pass a resolution to end “the outdated and nonsensical” “one China” policy to normalize US-Taiwan relations.
“The world has undergone dramatic changes since the days of [former US presidents] Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. Taiwan has become a vibrant, multiparty democracy, while China has become more oppressive, more belligerent, and more dangerous,” the letter said.
“Yet America’s policy framework remains on autopilot, frozen in a 1970’s time warp. It is time for [the US] Congress to revisit this policy and have an open and honest debate about how best to modernize it,” it said.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
RSS