The AUKUS partnership would help promote cross-strait peace and stability, said US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who earlier on Wednesday discussed China with European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino.
Campbell and Sannino in a telephone call “discussed the challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China,” US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The two agreed on “the need to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Miller said.
Photo: Reuters
It was the second time Campbell mentioned the situation in the Taiwan Strait on the same day, following a conversation he had with Washington-based think tank the Center for a New American Security to discuss the AUKUS security partnership between the US, the UK and Australia.
As a key part of the AUKUS agreement, the US and the UK plan to supply Australia with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in an effort to counter China’s aggression in the region.
The cooperation would bring additional capacity to “help strengthen deterrence” and it would “have enormous implications in a variety of scenarios, including cross-strait circumstances,” Campbell said.
The remark was “a rare linkage between Taiwan and AUKUS” from the three governments, which have been reluctant to publicly tie AUKUS to growing tensions over Taiwan, Reuters reported yesterday.
Separately, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) in an interview with Danish daily Berlingske published on Wednesday urged Denmark to respect the desires of people who want to be known as Taiwanese.
The newspaper last month reported that at least 10 Taiwanese reported being listed as citizens of “China” instead of “Taiwan” on their residence cards issued by Danish authorities.
The Danish Agency for International Recruitment, which is in charge of the issuance of the cards, said that changing the country of origin for Taiwanese to “China” was a correction of a “regrettable mistake.”
The will of Taiwanese should be respected, Wu said, adding that Taiwan and China do not belong to each other, a fact that is widely recognized by countries around the world.
As democracies worldwide are fighting against the expansion of authoritarianism, Denmark should be a democratic model and not equate democratic Taiwan with authoritarian China, he said.
Viewing Taiwan as a part of China would help Beijing justify its ambition to launch military operations against the nation, he said.
An annual report on the implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy adopted by the European Parliament in February states that Chinese territorial claims over Taiwan “have no basis in international law,” Wu said.
Taiwanese greatly admire the support of Denmark and other EU members to Ukraine and hope they could in the same manner support Taiwan’s fight against authoritarian aggression, he said.
Chinese expansionism poses a threat to global peace and stability, and must not be appeased, he said, adding that appeasement would not bring peace.
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),
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