People should beware of false information designed to erode confidence in US commitments to defend Taiwan and damage Taiwan-US ties, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
US radio talk show host Garland Nixon last week wrote on Twitter that sources said US President Joe Biden had warned about the “destruction of Taiwan.”
“BREAKING NEWS: White House insiders leak that, when asked if there could be any greater disaster than the neocon Ukraine project, President Biden responded, wait until you see our plan for the destruction of Taiwan,” Nixon wrote.
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) shared Nixon’s post on Facebook with a Chinese-language translation.
“It has come to our attention that a certain Taiwanese politician quoted from a reportedly famous radio talk show host in Washington, who said that the White House has a plan to destroy Taiwan,” the ministry said in a statement. “Such information is unverified and false, as Taiwan-US relations continue to grow in a positive direction, and US officials repeatedly pledge to support Taiwan and maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
“We want to remind people to beware of messages from certain individuals expressing anti-US sentiments or those questioning the US’ commitment to defend Taiwan, as they will take advantage of every opportunity to spread false information using sensational content,” it said. “They often echo the rhetoric that China uses for cognitive warfare to erode Taiwanese confidence in the US and damage the Taiwan-US partnerships.”
Bolstering Taiwan-US ties has been a bipartisan consensus, the ministry said, adding that the US government has fulfilled the commitments of the Taiwan Relations Act and the “six assurances.”
The Biden administration has approved arms sales to Taiwan eight times since 2020, while White House officials have on multiple occasions voiced support for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said.
Taiwan and the US have expanded partnerships, including through the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade, the Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue and the US-Taiwan Education Initiative, it said.
In November last year, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Washington and the American Institute in Taiwan signed a memorandum of understanding on development and humanitarian assistance operations, the ministry said.
Taiwan has deepened cooperation with Australia, Japan and the US through the framework of Global Cooperation and Training Framework, it added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching