FOREIGN AFFAIRS
US passes Taiwan map bill
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a ban on using public funds to make, buy or display maps that “inaccurately” display Taiwan, without specifying what constitutes an accurate map. The provision was part of a US$1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill, which must be passed by the Senate before reaching US President Joe Biden’s desk. The ban is a modified version of a motion to prohibit maps that identify Taiwan as part of China, introduced by US representatives Tom Tiffany, Steve Chabot, Scott Perry, Kat Cammack and Mike Gallagher last year. “As we all know, Taiwan has never been part of communist China. The Taiwanese people elect their own leaders, raise their own armed forces, conduct their own foreign policy and maintain their own international trade agreements,” Tiffany said at the time.
Photo: Screen grab from the National Football League Communications’ Twitter account
DEFENSE
NSB confirms plane crash
The National Security Bureau (NSB) yesterday confirmed that a Chinese military aircraft crashed in the South China Sea earlier this month. It was the first time a government agency from any country acknowledged the crash, details of which were first reported by a Vietnamese journalist on Sunday. Speaking at a legislative hearing, bureau Director-General Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said that Beijing promptly launched a search-and-rescue mission to recover the aircraft. A social media post by a reporter identified as Duan Dang said that the government lost contact with a Chinese Y-8 maritime patrol aircraft in the southwestern area of Sanya, China, on Tuesday last week. Chen said that China used the incident to seal off the area around the crash site, and reassert its claims in the South China Sea, while the world was distracted by the war in Ukraine.
DEFENSE
Bolster defense: US official
Washington’s response to a Chinese attack would be different from that seen in Ukraine, a top US Department of Defense official said on Wednesday. US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner made the remarks in testimony at a congressional hearing. “With the PRC [People’s Republic of China] as the department’s pacing challenge, Taiwan is the pacing scenario, and, we aim to deter and deny PRC aggression through a combination of Taiwan’s own defenses, its partnership with the United States and growing support from like-minded democracies,” Ratner said. “The lessons that I draw on, No. 1, are the importance of Taiwan developing its own [self-defense] capabilities,” he added.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Belize PM pitches businesses
A visiting delegation led by Belizean Prime Minister John Briceno yesterday pitched business opportunities to Taiwanese companies and investors in a forum in Taipei, which follows the Taiwan-Belize Economic Cooperation Agreement that took effect earlier this year. Belizean Trade and Investment Ambassador Jaime Briceno said that the Central American country can be a favorable investment destination for Taiwan given its bilingual population, stable currency, and predictable political and business environments, as well as government-initiated incentives. The agreement reduces taxes on 199 types of imported Belizean products, including frozen lobster, processed citrus products, and seasoning and sauce products. Under the agreement, Belize decreased taxes on 33 Taiwanese industrial products.
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
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