Six US lawmakers have sent a joint letter to US Vice President Kamala Harris, urging her to meet with Vice President William Lai (賴清德) during his stopovers in the US on the way to and from Paraguay next month.
Lai is to lead a delegation to attend the inauguration of Paraguayan president-elect Santiago Pena on Aug. 15.
While US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Lai is expected to “transit the United States on both the incoming and outgoing legs” of the trip, neither government has disclosed Lai’s itinerary in the US.
Photo: EPA-EFE
US Representative Tom Tiffany shared the letter, which was also signed by his Republican colleagues Andrew Ogles, Byron Donalds, Buddy Carter, Scott Perry and Scott DesJarlais, on the messaging platform X on Wednesday.
“We hope you will consider meeting personally with him during this stopover,” the letter said.
The US Congress passed the Taiwan Travel Act in 2018, which then-US senator Harris supported, to encourage high-level meetings between senior US officials and their Taiwanese counterparts, it said.
“Mr. Lai’s transit here in August will provide you with a key opportunity to make use of this law — and do as vice president what you voted for as a lawmaker,” it added.
The letter condemned China for its “reckless efforts to provoke a conflict in the Taiwan Strait” and its continual use of dollar diplomacy to restrict Taiwan’s international space, calling it “unacceptable.”
“Meeting with Vice President Lai would underscore the importance America affixes to the US-Taiwan friendship and make it clear that Beijing’s meddling in American foreign policy is unwelcome,” the letter said.
“It would also help Taiwan cement its remaining diplomatic partnerships and demonstrate that the [President Joe] Biden administration will not cower in the face of increasing Chinese belligerence and bullying,” it added.
In Taipei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said the government is thankful for US legislators across party lines, because they have long supported Taiwan.
Taiwan and the US are arranging the itinerary for Lai’s stopovers in the US and will make an announcement after it has been finalized, he said.
After Taiwan announced Lai’s trip, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had lodged a formal protest with Washington over “any visit by Taiwan separatists” and expressed its opposition to the US “indulging and supporting ... separatist activities.”
Blinken told reporters that “this is very routine, given the distances traveled, to have a transit point. And it is fully consistent with common practice.”
“There is no reason for the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to use this transit as a pretext for provocative action,” he added.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS