The Chinese government’s efforts to suppress vocal supporters of Taiwan harm cross-strait relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, after Beijing announced sanctions on ex-officials of former US president Donald Trump’s administration.
Following the inauguration of US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said that it would sanction 28 former Trump officials, saying they should be held accountable for intervening in China’s internal affairs.
The officials include former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former national security advisers Robert O’Brien and John Bolton, and former assistant secretary of state for the bureau of East Asian and Pacific affairs David Stilwell, and former US ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft, as well as former secretary of health and human services Alex Azar and former undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment Keith Krach, both of whom visited Taiwan last year.
Beijing’s move is puzzling and regrettable, foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement in Taipei.
Efforts to suppress Taiwan and its friends in the international community do not help improve cross-strait relations, but instead increase the already ill feelings of Taiwanese and the international community toward the Chinese government, Ou said.
Deepening Taiwan-US relations is a bipartisan effort in the US, she said, adding that Taipei hopes to work with the Biden administration on a solid foundation.
“These sanctions are for what my team accomplished, not what was said,” Krach wrote on Twitter.
“Our charge was to develop a Global Economic Security Strategy to advance U.S. National Security and combat CCP [Chinese Communist Party] economic aggression. It’s a badge of honor for results achieved by the team,” he wrote.
Just before she left her post, former US ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft, who had a virtual meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Thursday last week, again voiced support for Taiwan.
“The time is right for nations of the world to stand as one in opposition to the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China’s] efforts to exclude & isolate Taiwan. All @UN member states should recognize the benefits of Taiwan’s meaningful participation in int’l organizations & the damage done by its continued exclusion,” she wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
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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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching