The Presidential Office yesterday criticized the Chinese-language United Daily News after it reported that US Senator Lindsey Graham had a business agenda when he visited Taiwan in the middle of this month.
The newspaper yesterday reported that Graham, the ranking member of the US Senate Budget Committee, was “forcefully” trying to convince the government to buy commercial airplanes made by US-based Boeing Co.
Graham led a congressional delegation to Taiwan on April 14 and 15, during which he met with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other top government officials.
Photo: AP, courtesy of the Presidential Office
The report was based on two public statements by Graham.
During the delegation’s meeting with Tsai at the Presidential Office in Taipei on April 15, Graham said he hoped Taiwan would buy Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner jets.
The senator from South Carolina relayed this message again in a statement on Friday last week, saying: “I’m hoping in the coming weeks that Taiwan will announce that they’re going to buy 24 787 wide-body jets made by Boeing.”
“That would be a US$8 billion package,” he said. “It would be a tremendous boost to Boeing in South Carolina, and I’m hoping Taiwan will make that decision.”
Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) yesterday said that the article did nothing good for Taiwan’s relationship with the US.
Separately, Department of North American Affairs Director-General Douglas Hsu (徐佑典) said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “deeply regrets” the report, as it distorted the senator’s comments and harmed Taiwan’s relationship with the US.
Graham’s remarks should be seen in the context of an elected representative seeking the best for his constituents, which is entirely normal in democracies, Hsu said.
The government applies a rigorous vetting process to foreign companies that intend to do business in Taiwan to protect the nation’s interests and the local economy, he said.
Taiwan and the US are close partners in matters of trade, and bilateral exchanges on goods and investments are important to the prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, he said.
“The ministry calls on certain media firms to display the professionalism they are expected to have and to provide the public with factually correct information, instead of deliberately spreading untrue stories,” Hsu said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said the reason for the delegation’s visit to Taiwan was to improve the nation’s security following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not to generate business for Boeing.
Lawmakers such as Graham should not be slammed for supporting their constituents’ livelihoods, just as Taiwanese lawmakers should not be criticized when they promote locally made products while abroad, Wang said.
“It would be absurd if [foreign] media reported that our lawmakers were forcing pineapples on their country,” he said.
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