The Presidential Office confirmed yesterday that President Chen Shui-bian (
Observers in Washington have said that the US decision to limit Chen's transit to and from Central America later this month to short stops in Alaska was a rebuke after Chen's push for a referendum on applying for UN entry using the name "Taiwan."
Presidential Office spokesman David Lee (
The president cherishes the friendship and relations with the US government, Lee added.
As the main purpose of Chen's trip is to cement ties with the nation's diplomatic allies in Central America after Costa Rica switched allegiance to China, Chen does not want the issue of his transit stops to blur the focus of this trip, Lee said.
Chen is scheduled to leave for Central America on Aug. 20 to attend a summit in Honduras.
Despite US opposition, Lee said Chen would continue to push for a referendum on Taiwan's UN bid.
The referendum issue has touched a raw nerve among State Department and other administration officials at a time when the US needs Chinese cooperation on a number of international fronts.
As such, Taiwan's transit request was the first opportunity the department and others in the administration had to make their displeasure known in a concrete way, observers say.
One source said that during Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) visit to Washington last month, the referendum issue dominated his talks with senior administration officials.
In the discussions, "almost all of the focus was on the referendum," one source said.
The State Department on Friday confirmed that the US had decided to let Chen transit through Alaska, but said that the details of the trip and the transit had yet to be ironed out.
"We understand that the details and dates of the president's travel have not yet been finalized," a department official told the Taipei Times.
"That said, in keeping with our long-standing policy, and in strict conformance with existing criteria, the United States is prepared to facilitate transit in both directions [to and from Central America] through Alaska in August. These arrangements are intended only to facilitate transit to a third country," the official said.
While the official would not discuss the basis for the decision to allow the stopovers in Alaska, she said that the decision was "in accordance with our `one China' policy, along with the three US-China joint communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act."
It was also in keeping with the criteria of ensuring the safety, comfort, convenience and "the dignity of the traveler," the official said.
Chen's trip comes just weeks after the US House of Representatives approved without objection a resolution calling on the Washington administration to allow the Taiwanese president and other high-level Taiwanese officials to visit Washington freely for talks with the US government on matters of joint concern to the two countries.
Taiwan's lobbyists in Washington are making preparations for the resolution to be introduced in the Senate after Congress returns from a month-long summer recess on Sept. 4.
While Congressional members who support Taiwan are bound to be upset about the administration's decision to limit Chen's transit to Alaska, their absence from the capital -- with most currently in their home districts or trips abroad -- will limit their ability to arrange to meet or speak with Chen during his transit stops.
One possible exception would be Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a leading supporter of Taiwan and ranking Republican on the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
Murkowski "is always generous with her time" for visiting officials from Taiwan, a source said.
Other Congressional members are likely to try to contact Chen by telephone if they cannot make the trip to Alaska to meet him in person.
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
‘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
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
RSS