President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday in a meeting with American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Sandra Oudkirk said that she hoped Taiwan and the US will work together to advance their relationship.
Tsai said she was pleased to again meet Oudkirk, who assumed her post last month, and welcomed her on behalf of the government and the public to Taiwan for a second assignment.
Taipei was Oudkirk’s first overseas assignment after joining the US Foreign Service in 1991. She served as a consular officer at the AIT from 1992 to 1994. She later visited Taiwan in October 2019 as a senior US official for the APEC forum and deputy assistant secretary of state to attend the inaugural Pacific Islands Dialogue and Yushan Forum, and met Tsai during that trip.
Photo: CNA
Tsai mentioned at the meeting the US’ donation of 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan in June and the resumption of talks under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement after a nearly five-year hiatus the same month.
Tsai said she hoped the two countries will continue to strengthen their cooperation in areas such as investment, trade and supply chain security, and move toward the establishment of a bilateral trade agreement.
In terms of security, Tsai thanked the administration of US President Joe Biden for its announcement last week of its first weapons sale to Taiwan.
Oudkirk thanked Tsai for her warm greeting, and said she hoped to work with Tsai and her team to strengthen and expand Taiwan-US relations.
In related news, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday said KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) has reiterated his party’s approach of being “close to the US” and having “peace with the Mainland [China],” as well as its defense of the Republic of China in a virtual discussion on Monday with experts close to US policymakers.
Chiang told participants that the KMT has always supported closer bilateral relations with the US, and that he believes deepening the partnership between Taiwan and the US would be in the US’ interest and conducive to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, the party said in a statement.
“The KMT is the most staunch defender of the Constitution and sovereignty of the Republic of China,” the KMT quoted Chiang as saying.
Chiang also said the KMT adopts the position of “close to the US, peace with the Mainland,” and that as long as Washington and Beijing are not entirely hostile toward each other, enhancing relations with the US while improving cross-strait relations were not conflicting ideas, it said.
Former AIT acting chairman David Brown and Andrew Mertha, director of the China Studies program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, were among those who attended the meeting, the KMT said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods