The US, Japan and South Korea are to launch a series of joint initiatives on technology and defense when the nations’ leaders gather at Camp David on Friday, according to senior US administration officials, amid mounting shared concerns about China.
While the summit is unlikely to produce a formal security arrangement that commits the nations to each others’ defense, they would agree to mutual understanding about regional responsibilities and set up a three-way hotline to communicate in times of crisis, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US President Joe Biden invited Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to the storied presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains as the Asian nations work to mend their tattered diplomatic relations in the face of greater regional threats posed by China’s rise and North Korea.
Photo: Reuters
It would mark the first in what US officials hope to be an annual gathering between the three nations’ leaders.
South Korea and Japan held their first joint summit in 12 years in March and have made steps to ease tensions after years of disputes, including some related to Japan’s 1910 to 1945 occupation of Korea.
Washington has formal collective defense arrangements in place with Tokyo and Seoul separately, but it wants the two nations to work closer together given growing concerns about China’s mounting power.
“We are anticipating some steps that will bring us closer together in the security realm,” said one of the US officials, adding that doing so would “add to our collective security.”
However, the official said that “it’s too much to ask — it’s a bridge too far — to fully expect a three-way security framework among each of us. However, we are taking steps whereby each of the countries understand responsibilities with respect to regional security, and we are advancing new areas of coordination and ballistic missile defense, again technology, that will be perceived as very substantial.”
The summit is also expected to lead to a joint statement between the nations that includes some language speaking to concerns about China’s desire to change the status of Taiwan.
The US, Japanese and South Korean joint statement is set to include language on maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, one of the officials said.
The exact language on that and other provisions are expected to be negotiated up to the last minute, but the language currently under consideration would be consistent with prior US positions on the subject, avoiding a sharp escalation in rhetoric with Beijing as Washington has been seeking to ease tensions.
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
RSS