American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene yesterday reiterated that the US stands with its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, adding that cooperation is more critical than ever.
Greene made the comments during his congratulatory remarks at the “Taiwan Forward: Driving Modernization Amid Shifting Global Dynamics” conference at National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei.
“The United States stands strong with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific,” he said. “We’re taking decisive actions to counter threats against economic resilience and advanced shared interests.”
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
“Our cooperation is more critical than ever,” he said, adding that it makes “the US, Taiwan and all of our regional allies safer, stronger and more prosperous,” referring to remarks by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍).
While many countries have recognized Taiwan as a beacon of universal values and support the nation’s resilience and international participation, it has also in the past decade significantly reduced its investments in China, moving them to like-minded democratic countries, Greene said.
However, Taiwan still faces challenges, such as leading in artificial intelligence (AI), but falling behind in software development, which is partially due to reasonable concerns over China’s infiltration of Chinese-language large language models, he said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Greene also addressed the nation’s security “in the face of a relentlessly aggressive China that is using the full range of military, economic and diplomatic tools against Taiwan.”
“The United States has a stake in these questions and in Taiwan’s success,” he said, adding that the US and Taiwan are leading partners in advanced technology development, while the number of Taiwanese students studying in the US is growing and Taiwan is the US’ seventh-largest trading partner.
“Maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is critical for the United States and the entire world,” the AIT director said.
Citing comments by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Greene said the US has a long-standing position on Taiwan that it would not abandon, which is that “we are against any forced, compelled, coercive change in the status of Taiwan.”
“The challenges Taiwan faces are not only challenges for Taiwan, but for the United States, and the entire world,” he said. “A strong, resilient Taiwan, and a stable and peaceful Indo-Pacific are the foundations of modernization.”
The conference — organized by the Taiwan Program at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and cosponsored by NTU’s Office of International Affairs — featured panel discussions with academics from Stanford University, NTU and other universities in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, alongside Taiwanese industry leaders, on topics ranging from AI innovation and semiconductor, entrepreneurship, biomedical and healthcare advancements, and Taiwan’s demographic transformation.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should