A US defense policy bill containing sections supportive of Taiwan was passed into law on Friday as the US Senate voted to override a veto by US President Donald Trump.
The Senate voted 81-13 to approve the US National Defense Authorization Act, clearing the two-thirds majority required to override a presidential veto.
The US House of Representatives voted 322-87 to override the veto on Monday.
Trump on Wednesday last week vetoed the bill after lawmakers refused to include provisions repealing legal liability protections for social media companies.
The US$741 billion legislation contains two sections that specifically deal with Taiwan, while also establishing an initiative to bolster the US military’s presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
The first, Section 1260, reaffirms that the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the “six assurances” provided by the US to Taiwan in 1982 are “the foundation for United States-Taiwan relations.”
Section 1260 also requires the US secretary of state to make an annual briefing to Congress on US arms sales to Taiwan within 45 days of the bill’s passage.
The section also states that the defense secretary must brief Congress within 180 days of the bill’s passage on the feasibility of establishing a medical security partnership with the Ministry of National Defense.
Section 9724 of the bill calls on the US to ensure that Taiwanese do not face discrimination when seeking employment at international financial institutions, such as the World Bank or the IMF.
In another portion of the bill, which does not directly refer to Taiwan, but might have implications for the region, Congress allocates US$2.235 billion to the US Department of Defense to establish the Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
The bill states that the initiative would comprise activities to “enhance the United States’ deterrence and defense posture in the Indo-Pacific region, assure allies and partners, and increase probability and readiness in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The TRA was promulgated in 1979 to maintain commercial, cultural and other unofficial relations between Taiwan and the US after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
The TRA also requires the US “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.”
The “six assurances” were given by then-US president Ronald Reagan to Taiwan in 1982. They include pledges not to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, not to hold prior consultations with China regarding arms sales to Taiwan, and not to play a mediation role between the two rivals.
They also include assurances that the US will not revise the TRA or pressure Taipei to enter into negotiations with Beijing.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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