Taiwan will hang like a “dark cloud” over the sixth meeting of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing this week, according to a leading US-China expert.
“Over the past six years, Taiwan and China had made significant progress in normalizing their economic relations — but this progress hit a wall this spring,” Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Bush said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew are to meet with Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang (汪洋) today and tomorrow at what is being seen as a critical time to work on stabilizing US-China ties.
“Neither Taiwan nor Hong Kong will likely be on the formal agenda for the S&ED, but they will hang like rather dark clouds over the proceedings,” Bush said.
He said the tensions in Hong Kong reached a new peak last week as nearly 800,000 people participated in an unofficial referendum in support of a liberal approach to electoral reform and hundreds of thousands braved bad weather to march in support of the same goal.
In Taiwan, Bush said, opposition parties and civic activist groups mounted protests against a draft agreement on trade in services.
“This has forced the governments in Taipei and Beijing to regroup and try to ensure that things don’t get worse,” he said.
“But Taiwan politics remain very fluid, and the possibility exists that the candidate of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party will win the next presidential election, scheduled for January 2016, with unpredictable consequences for cross-strait relations,” he added.
He said that in Hong Kong the US supported genuine electoral reform that would permit a competitive election of Hong Kong’s chief executive.
In Taiwan, Washington has supported the improvement in cross-strait relations, but also support Taiwan’s freedom to make its choices free of any coercion and at its own pace, Bush said.
“On both issues, Beijing suspects that the US is acting behind the scenes to prevent it from achieving its political objectives,” he added.
Writing on the Brookings Institution’s Web site, Bush said: “That perception misstates the US role: The reason that Beijing has not achieved its objectives in both Hong Kong and Taiwan is that it has not yet made proposals that meet the wishes and expectations of the peoples of each place.”
US Department of State spokesperson Jen Psaki on Monday said that the dialogue was a “central forum” for the US and China to take stock of progress, set new goals, develop habits of cooperation and areas of mutual interest, and manage areas of differences through candid high-level discussions.
“Our two countries will exchange views and forge progress on global, regional and bilateral challenges, including pressing issues related to Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and maritime disputes,” she said.
However, some were far from optimistic.
Chief executive and cofounder of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) Michele Flournoy and CNAS senior fellow Ely Ratner called on Monday for a “careful reassessment” of the overall US approach to China.
They wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that it was imperative that China’s destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas stop.
“This will require the US to take steps that more regularly and visibly enforce the rules-based international order in Asia,” they said.
The Washington Post reported on Monday that China’s aggressive actions in the East and South China Seas were “the most worrying deterioration in US-China relations in decades.”
The newspaper said the risk of military escalation was growing, generating “bad blood” between Washington and Beijing, and could torpedo cooperation.
With the S&ED meetings about to open, the Post reported that “some say the US-China relationship is facing its stiffest test since [former US] president Richard Nixon traveled to [former Chinese leader] Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) China in 1972.”
SPEEDING ELETRIC VEHICLES: Available without license requirements, the low-cost vehicles, especially if illicitly modified, can often reach a dangerous speed The government should crack down on illegal electric bicycles and scooters, the non-profit Consumers’ Foundation said on Friday, citing research on the potentially dangerous speed of the vehicles. Electric bicycles and lightweight electric scooters have gained popularity as they do not require registration and riders do not need licenses, the foundation said, adding that as many as 40 percent of them can reach speeds exceeding the legal limit of 25kph for non-licensed two-wheelers. Some consumers also purchased legal electric vehicles and modified them to reach higher speeds, it said. “If the government does not step up efforts to confiscate these
NEW CASE REPORTED: A man who returned from South Africa on a flight with the nation’s 460th and 461st cases has now tested positive for the disease The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that there is no need to test all arrivals to the nation for COVID-19, a policy the Executive Yuan supports. The center reported one new imported case, bringing the nation’s tally of confirmed cases to 477. The new case is a Taiwanese man in his 60s who on July 25 returned from South Africa, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is also the CECC’s spokesman. The man had returned to Taiwan on the same flight as cases Nos. 460 and 461, reported on July 27, Chuang said. On July 24,
More than half of Taiwan’s middle-aged population, those aged between 40 and 64, have at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar — and an unhealthy waist size, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said, adding that more than 30 percent also have metabolic syndrome. The HPA, the Taiwan Millennium Health Foundation and local health departments are cooperating to encourage people to regularly measure their waist circumference and keep it at a healthy size — no more than 90cm for adult men and no more than 80cm for adult women. Taichung Veterans General
‘RELIABLE PARTNER’: US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar praised the ‘Taiwan model,’ saying that the nation brought its spirit to its COVID-19 response The first memorandum of understanding (MOU) on health cooperation between the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the US Department of Health and Human Services was yesterday signed at the Centers for Disease Control in Taipei. The memorandum was signed between the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, by AIT Director Brent Christensen and Taiwan Council for US Affairs Chairperson Jen-ni Yang (楊珍妮). US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) witnessed the signing of the memorandum, designed to enhance the nations’
RSS