The US would continue to fulfill its commitments to Taiwan’s self-defense needs and to the security of the Indo-Pacific region, US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
The comments came after Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) defended Beijing’s increased military activity in the Taiwan Strait, saying that Taiwan “independence means war.”
Kirby said that Wu’s remarks were “unfortunate and certainly not commensurate with our intention to meet our obligations under the [US] Taiwan Relations Act.”
The US Department of Defense “sees no reason why tensions over Taiwan need to lead to anything like confrontation,” he said in response to media queries at a news conference.
On the broader issue of Taiwan, “nothing has changed” on the Pentagon’s commitments to the act and the Three Joint Communiques between the US and China, Kirby said, citing remarks made by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin during his confirmation hearing.
“This is something that has been supported in a bipartisan way for decades and the Department of Defense under [Austin’s] leadership will continue that same support for its obligations to Taiwan’s self-defense,” he said.
Asked if the US was ready and able to defend Taiwan against a potential Chinese invasion, Kirby said the question was “hypothetical,” adding that the US military “remains ready in all respects to meet our security commitments in the region.”
The Taiwan Relations Act was promulgated in 1979 to maintain commercial, cultural and other unofficial relations between the US and Taiwan after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
The act also requires the US “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.”
The Three Joint Communiques are a collection of statements made by the US and Chinese governments from 1972 to 1982, in which the US “acknowledges” China’s position on Taiwan, among other things.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened 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), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS