Members of the US House of Representatives on Tuesday reintroduced a bill to support Taiwan’s international space and counter coercion by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The Taiwan Allies Fund Act was reintroduced by US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, ranking member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the US and the CCP, and other representative from across party lines, including John Moolenaar, Gregory Meeks and Ted Lieu (劉雲平), the committee said in a statement.
A companion bill in the US Senate is being led by US senators Chris van Hollen, John Curtis and Andy Kim.
Photo: AFP
Krishnamoorthi late last month announced his intention to reintroduce the bill, which would authorize US$120 million from next year to 2028 to provide assistance to Taiwan’s official and unofficial partners subjected to coercion and pressure from the CCP.
The appropriations would be for use in countries that meet criteria, including those that “maintain official relations with Taiwan or have meaningfully strengthened unofficial relations with Taiwan” and “have been subject to coercion or pressure by the People’s Republic of China [PRC] due to their relations with Taiwan.”
A country that qualifies for the funding may not receive more than US$5 million during any fiscal year, the bill says.
The money would be to support activities such as building “the capacity and resilience of civil society, media and other non-governmental organizations in countering the influence and propaganda of the PRC,” it says.
To maximize cost efficiency and eliminate duplication, the bill says that the US secretary of state should work with the director of the American Institute in Taiwan to ensure coordination with parties in Taiwan.
“China wants the world to turn a blind eye to its nefarious ambitions with Taiwan,” Curtis was quoted as saying in the statement.
“We cannot allow nations to fall prey to China’s pressure campaigns, which is why we’ve introduced bipartisan legislation to counter China’s attempts to silence Taiwan’s allies,” he said.
“Our bill helps countries stand strong in the face of the CCP and strengthen their ties with Taiwan,” he said.
The Taiwan Allies Fund Act was cosponsored by Krishnamoorthi last year, but it was not enacted after stalling in the Senate.
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
US-CHINA SUMMIT: MOFA welcomed US reassurance of no change in its Taiwan policy; Trump said he did not comment when Xi talked of opposing independence US President Donald Trump yesterday said he has not made a decision on whether to move forward with a major arms package for Taiwan after hearing concerns about it from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Trump’s comments on Taiwan came as he flew back to Washington after wrapping up critical talks in which both leaders said important progress was made in stabilizing US-China relations even as deep differences persist between the world’s two biggest powers on Iran and Taiwan. “I will make a determination,” Trump said, adding: “I’ll be making decisions. But, you know, I think the last thing we need right
RSS