US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz confirmed speculation yesterday that Taiwan has offered to assist in the US-led "war on terrorism," including with financial contributions.
Wolfowitz said during a flight to Singapore to attend an international conference on Asian security that "Taiwan has made some offers, as everyone else is making offers. We very much appreciate it. We are exploring right now how those offers can best be put to use. We are looking at this in a very practical way.
"We are not looking for symbolism and we are not looking for managing this from a political point of view. We are trying to figure out where those offers of assistance can best be applied," he said.
However, Wolfowitz was reluctant to talk specifically about Taiwan's offers, saying only: "That is part of those offers, but I really don't want to get into the details."
The US has been exploring the possibility of getting financial contributions from Taiwan, South Korea and Japan -- three of Washington's most important allies in Asia -- for its anti-terrorist campaign in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington last year.
Japan has made the most significant offers to the US, including dispatching military vessels to assist in logistics and supplies.
Taiwan is said to have offered data and information on terrorist suspects' financial and immigration records, in addition to providing Afghan refugees with blankets, tents and trucks.
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
RSS