The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday thanked US President Joe Biden for his remarks about the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait in his UN speech.
Biden delivered the speech, his final address to the UN as US president, at the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, emphasizing US support for stability in the Strait, condemning military aggression in the South China Sea and committing to deepening security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.
Biden said the US is “unabashed” in its pursuit of its goals, including protecting its lead in advanced technologies.
Photo: AFP
“At the same time, we’re going to continue to strengthen our network of alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific,” Biden said. “These partnerships are not against any nation. They are building blocks for a free, open, secure, and peaceful Indo-Pacific.”
Biden’s remarks came after several days of meetings between US officials and representatives of major allies, including a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) leaders’ summit, meetings between G7 foreign ministers, a trilateral discussion between the US, Japan and South Korea, and US-Australia talks.
The G7 foreign ministers’ statement on Tuesday said the group supports “Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations as a member where statehood is not a prerequisite and as an observer or guest where it is.”
The group reaffirmed that “maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is indispensable to international security and prosperity,” and called for “the peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues.”
There “is no change in the basic position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including stated ‘one China’ policies,” the statement said.
MOFA thanked the countries for their support and emphasized that Taiwan would continue to work with the US and other like-minded nations to safeguard peace, stability and prosperity in the Taiwan Strait and the region.
After Monday’s trilateral meeting between the US, Japan and South Korea, the countries in a statement said that “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the international community.”
Although Taiwan was not mentioned by name in the annual Quad Leaders’ Summit’s joint statement, the group, which is made up of the US, Australia, India and Japan, called for “maintenance of peace, safety, security and stability” in the Indo-Pacific region.
Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after their meeting on Friday last week said that they discussed maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait, as they expressed their concerns regarding China’s “coercive and destabilizing” activities.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS