A top foreign policy aide to US President Barack Obama on Wednesday refused to comment on a possible meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes danced around the question, giving little indication of the White House’s reaction. Nevertheless, it was the first time the Obama administration had publicly addressed the possible meeting.
Rhodes was asked at a conference in the US Department of State’s Foreign Press Center how the Obama administration viewed the prospect of a “summit” or meeting between Xi and Ma.
“That is something that both sides would have to agree to,” he said. “We have, as a general matter, supported cross-strait dialogue.”
He said the US had encouraged the “constructive approach” that Ma and Xi had brought to the dialogue.
“As a friend to both sides, what we would want to see is an outcome that reduces any tension across the Strait and that pursues closer ties that benefit both the people of Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China,” Rhodes said.
He had been reminded by the questioner at the conference that Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and Taiwan Affairs Office Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) were scheduled to meet in Nanjing on Feb. 11 and that there was speculation that the meeting could lead to a Ma-Xi summit later in the year.
“The US will continue to support cross-strait dialogue, to see it advance and evolve over time, to see it address the different facets of the relationship,” Rhodes said.
If Ma and Xi decided to meet, “that is something we will have to review at the time,” he said.
“We will await to see the outcome of those talks,” he said.
“In the meantime, we will continue our long-standing practice of supporting a one China policy, maintaining our friendship with the people of Taiwan and seeking to support dialogue across the Strait,” he said.
Asked to enlarge on US relations with China this year — a subject Obama barely mentioned in his State of the Union address on Tuesday — Rhodes said that North Korea and Iran would form “key parts” of the agenda.
He said the trade and economic relationship between the US and China would continue to be “broad and entwined.”
Rhodes also said the US would “initiate a dialogue” with Beijing on cybersecurity and cyberconcerns.
“Maritime security will continue to be an issue,” he said.
“If you take an issue like the South China Sea, the US believes there should not be unilateral actions that seek to change facts on the ground,” he said.
He added that problems should be solved with dialogue and established policies.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS