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.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS