US Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to signal a retreat from the Bush administration's tough line on the Taiwan referendum on Wednesday in testimony before a congressional committee hearing on President George W. Bush's fiscal 2005 budget request for the State Department and foreign affairs.
"Taiwan is a democratic place," he told the House International Relations Committee. "If they choose to have a referendum, they can have a referendum."
Powell omitted from his comments recent administration statements that linked the planned referendum with changing the "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait, a connection Bush and his aides have repeatedly made.
Powell did say, however, in answer to a question by Democrat Sherrod Brown, a co-chairman of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, that the Bush administration "does not want to see these actions lead in any way to a change in the situation." He did not give details.
Citing the administration's "one China" policy based on the three communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act, "which gives us certain obligations with respect to the security of Taiwan," Powell said, "we don't believe any action should be taken in the region that would unilaterally change the situation."
He added that "we don't really see a need for these referenda."
Powell also said the US is making strong diplomatic efforts to dissuade European nations from dropping their Tienanmen-era ban on sales of weapons to China in view of recent efforts by France and other nations to resume the arms sales.
Powell said he raised the issue with the French foreign minister at lunch last Friday, and with Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen before his appearance at the committee hearing on Wednesday.
"I have been talking with all of my European Union colleagues," including foreign ministers Jack Straw of Britain and Joschka Fischer of Germany, he said.
He said he told them "this is something they really need to give long and hard thought to, and not do."
While the EU has shelved the issue for the moment, they will return to it, Powell cautioned the committee, and "we will be pressing our European colleagues not to abandon this policy."
Meanwhile, for the fifth year in a row, Brown and the other three Taiwan caucus co-chairmen introduced legislation in the House endorsing observer status for Taiwan in the meeting of the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May.
The bill authorizes Powell to "introduce a resolution on the floor of the World Health Assembly, before the assembled delegates, in support of Taiwan's participation" in the meeting as an observer.
It was the first time that such a bill had authorized the introduction of such a resolution.
Previous years' versions merely urged the secretary to develop a strategy to secure Taiwan's observer status.
As a result, while the US has spoken in favor of Taiwan in recent meetings, such comments were generally made in meetings on the sidelines of the actual assembly, not in it.
"SARS and avian influenza continue to threaten Taiwan," Brown said. "The case has never been stronger for allowing the people of Taiwan access to the World Health Organization," he said, noting that SARS killed scores of people in Taiwan last year.
As in recent years, the current bill also mandates the secretary to develop and implement a plan to secure observe status in the World Health Assembly for Taiwan.
In addition to Brown, the other caucus co-chairs who sponsored the bill are Republican Steve Chabot, Republican Dana Rohrabacher, and Robert Wexler, a Democrat.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
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
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS