Former US senator Bob Dole was lobbying for Taiwan during a six-month period that ended in April, recently released documents show.
He contacted at least eight Washington officials on Taipei’s behalf and the law and lobbying firm he represents — Alston & Bird — was paid a total of US$120,000.
Lobbying documents made public this week by the non-profit Sunlight Foundation show that Taipei was particularly interested in developing relations with the US presidential campaign of Republican Mitt Romney.
Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, wrote separate letters to Romney advisers Dov Zakheim, Mitchell Reiss, Eric Edelman, Alex Wong and Kerry Healey.
The letters were aimed primarily at persuading the advisers to meet with Representative to the US Jason Yuan (袁健生).
In addition, the 88-year-old Dole wrote to Hogan Gidley, an adviser to former US senator Rick Santorum, and CIA Director David Petraeus requesting that they meet with Yuan.
During the same period, Dole also contacted US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to negotiate a new diplomatic immunity agreement with Taipei and White House official Valerie Jarrett to request presidential support for the Dragon Boat Festival.
The letter to Gidley was a curious development because it was written two weeks after Santorum had dropped out of the Republican presidential nominee race.
He was the second Taiwan lobbyist in Washington to make the news recently.
Last month, US Representative Bill Owens ordered his staff to undergo special ethics training in the aftermath of a controversial trip to Taiwan that he and his wife took late last year.
Owens paid back the US$22,000 cost of the trip to the Taipei-based Chinese Culture University, which was supposed to organize the trip “to promote international cultural exchange.”
It has been alleged in the US that the trip was actually organized by Park Strategies, a lobbying company employed by the Taiwanese government.
Park Strategies was paid US$250,000 for lobbying services by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington last year.
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The Taipei City Government yesterday confirmed that it has negotiated a royalties of NT$12.2 billion (US$380 million) with artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, with the earliest possible signing date set for Wednesday next week. The city has been preparing for Nvidia to build its Taiwan headquarters in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park since last year, and the project has now entered its final stage before the contract is signed. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the city government has completed the royalty price negotiations and would now push through the remaining procedures to sign the contract before
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said the name of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania was agreed by both sides, after Lithuania’s prime minister described a 2021 decision to let Taiwan set up a de facto embassy in Vilnius as a “mistake.” Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, who entered office in September last year, told the Baltic News Service on Tuesday that Lithuania had begun taking “small first steps” aimed at restoring ties with Beijing. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan and Lithuania are important partners that share the values of freedom and democracy. Since the establishment of the
Taipei Zoo welcomes the Lunar New Year this year through its efforts to protect an endangered species of horse native to central Asia that was once fully extinct outside of captivity. The festival ushering in the Year of the Horse would draw attention to the zoo’s four specimens of Przewalski’s horse, named for a Russian geographer who first encountered them in the late 19th century across the steppes of western Mongolia. “Visitors will look at the horses and think that since this is the Year of the Horse: ‘I want to get to know horses,’” said zookeeper Chen Yun-chieh, who has been
RSS