US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said he plans to lead a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan this spring, despite renewed tensions with Beijing over China’s alleged spy balloon incursion over the US.
“I think it’s important to show China that we support Taiwan as a deterrence. I think it’s important to do that,” McCaul, a Republican, said in an interview on Tuesday.
The schedule and member list remains fluid, but the trip would likely take place during the congressional recess in April, a person familiar with the matter said.
Photo: AP
Discussions with some House Democrats have started about joining such a trip with McCaul, said one of the lawmakers who have been approached.
McCaul said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would plan a separate trip to Taiwan either later this year or next year.
He said he intends to join McCarthy, whenever the speaker does go.
The US-China relationship is already under fresh strain after Beijing flew an alleged spy balloon across the continental US and accused the administration of US President Joe Biden of overreacting when it shot the balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean.
China declined a US request to hold a secure call between US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Minister of National Defense Wei Fenghe (魏鳳和) immediately after the balloon was downed, the US Department of Defense has said.
House Republicans have made competition with China a key feature of their agenda now that they control the chamber, and lawmakers formed a bipartisan select committee to study the matter.
McCaul has pushed the Biden administration to impose stronger export controls cutting China off from critical technologies.
US Senator Todd Young, a Republican who also visited Taipei last month, encouraged McCarthy and every other member of the US Congress to go.
In an interview, he said the Chinese government told him to cancel the visit.
“The worst thing we could do is to balk,” Young said.
At least 37 US lawmakers visited Taiwan last year, by far the most in a decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Young was the first lawmaker to visit this year on Jan. 17.
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS