President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday received Project 2049 Institute chairman Randall Schriver, a former US assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, at the Presidential Office in Taipei and thanked him for facilitating the sale of F-16V jets to Taiwan.
Taiwan is Schriver’s “first stop” abroad since he left his post in December last year, Tsai said.
During his tenure as a top US Department of State official, Schriver worked to enhance the Taiwan-US security relationship, and valued Taiwan’s role and position in the Indo-Pacific region, she said.
Photo: CNA
“I would like to take this opportunity to especially thank chairman Schriver for his support and contribution to Taiwan’s democracy, freedom and security,” Tsai said.
In the Jan. 11 presidential election, Taiwanese once again showed their commitment to democratic values, she said.
Taiwan’s democratic defense mechanisms would continue to be strengthened, Tsai said, adding that Taipei hoped to work with the US and other like-minded countries toward “peace, stability and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific region.
Global public health and economies worldwide have been severely affected by an outbreak of COVID-19 in China, she said.
Taiwan is a member of the global community, she said, adding that “disease knows no borders.”
Tsai thanked Washington, the US Congress and Americans for their support and assistance regarding Taiwan’s participation in the WHO.
Taiwan is willing and able to contribute more to the international community, whether it comes to experience in preventing epidemics, healthcare capabilities or even in the peace, stability and prosperity of the overall region, she said.
Taiwan should not be excluded from conversations because of political reasons, she added.
Tsai said that she looked forward to Schriver providing Taiwan with support and advice, and working together for the development of Taiwan-US relations.
Speaking at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei on Wednesday, Schriver said that the US is in “an era of strategic competition with China.”
“I think at the most fundamental level, we are competing in order to maintain an advantage and an edge so that we can continue to promote the qualities and characteristics of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Schriver said.
“Our competition is not for geography,” he said. “It’s not for territory or water or for control. In fact, the United States has no ambition in the Indo-Pacific commons other than to ensure that they remain free and open.”
“Taiwan’s ability to protect itself, to protect its sovereignty, to deal with the emerging challenges of China is really the linchpin to security throughout the Indo-Pacific,” Schriver said. “So our partnership with Taiwan is very focused on helping Taiwan implement its own strategy.”
“Taiwan is in its own way building out its own relationships with other countries who share the same vision beyond the United States,” he said.
“So the United States, I think, can also be a bridge in helping Taiwan strengthen its relations with other key actors in the region,” he added.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
Opening-day ticket sales for a horror exhibition at the Tainan Art Museum were suspended twice on Saturday as the show attracted too many visitors. Titled “Ghosts and Hells: The Underworld in Asian art,” the exhibition runs until Oct. 16. It is the local version of a show that debuted at the Musee du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. It was planned and curated by Julien Rousseau. The Tainan museum said that within an hour of its doors opening, more than 1,000 people had entered the exhibition. By noon, 3,000 physical and virtual tickets had been sold, while the museum had more than 4,000