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.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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