John Bolton, one of Taiwan's most ardent champions in the Bush administration and a man who once advocated admitting Taiwan as a member of the UN, has been chosen to be the next US ambassador to the UN.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the selection of Bolton, who is now the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, in a ceremony at the State Department on Monday.
Rice said President George W. Bush picked Bolton because "he knows how to get things done. He is a tough-minded diplomat, he has a strong record of success and he has a proven track record of effective multilateralism."
Bolton is "personally committed to the future success of the United Nations and he will be a strong voice for reform," Rice added.
Bolton has long personal and professional ties with Taiwan. Bolton once received a US$30,000 grant from Taiwan's government to write three research papers between 1994 and 1996 advocating ways in which Taiwan might win its way back into the UN.
He wrote those articles when he was an academic with the conservative Washington-based think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), at a time when he was also advocating that Washington recognize Taiwan's independence.
"Diplomatic recognition of Taiwan would be just the kind of demonstration of US leadership that the region needs and that many of its people hope for," Bolton said in a statement cited by AEI in 1999.
By the UN's definition of a "state," Bolton wrote in a 1999 Washington Times article when he was at AEI, "any reasonable person would have to concede that Taiwan as democracy with a population larger than two-thirds of the UN's present members, and one of the world's largest international traders meets the [UN] Charter definition of 'statehood,'" Bolton wrote.
"The palpable unfairness of denying UN representation to the Republic of China reflects not only the petulant opposition of the People's Republic of China, but also the organization's detachment from international reality," he wrote.
Bolton was forced to retract those words when he was tapped by Bush to his present State Department post.
Under tough questioning from leading Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his confirmation hearing, including later presidential candidate John Kerry and the committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Joseph Biden, Bolton conceded that "things have changed" since his nomination.
He asserted that "I stand by the analysis," But said, "it's not on my checklist of things to do at the State Department."
Pressed further by Kerry, Bolton said, "It's not my function to advocate diplomatic recognition for Taiwan, and it would be inappropriate for me to do so."
In an incident that underscored Bolton's affection for Taiwan, Bolton bent diplomatic protocol during first lady Wu Shu-chen's (吳淑珍) September 2002 visit to Washington when he approached her after a speech she gave at the AEI and engaged her in conversation. The two then held a 20 minute closed-door meeting.
He told reporters that he met Wu, whose Washington visit was billed as a private trip, as "under secretary of state and an alumnus of AEI."
Ironically, one of Wu's main message during her speech, and during her entire Washington trip, was that Taiwan deserved to be in the UN.
"Even though we are not a member of the United Nations, as long as Taiwan keeps the faith and perseveres, we will eventually be able to join the United Nations again," she told the standing-room-only AEI audience.
"I have confidence that our ongoing effort will enable us to obtain our deserved representation," she said.
While Bolton is likely to be confirmed by the Senate, he might face tough sledding in the process.
The Senate was deeply divided in its approval of his appointment to the anti-proliferation post, voting 57-43 to approve him, with only six Democrats joining a solid Republican vote of 50 in his favor.
Biden, Kerry and other members of the Foreign Relations Committee spoke out strongly against his confirmation on the floor of the chamber partly in view of Bolton's Taiwan stance, and Democrats are certain to mount a strong objection to his elevation to the UN post, citing his strong anti-UN positions in the past.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS