A bill, known as the “Defund China’s Allies Act,” has been introduced in the US House of Representatives, seeking to “prohibit the availability of foreign assistance to certain countries that do not recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan.”
The bill was introduced by Republican representatives Andy Ogles, Tom Tiffany, Lauren Boebert, Josh Brecheen, Mary Miller and Barry Moore.
The 21 countries specified in the bill are mostly in Latin America and have no relationship with Taiwan. They include eight countries that have severed ties with Taiwan over the past few years: Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Nicaragua and Honduras.
Photo: Reuters
Data on US foreign assistance showed that Washington provided nearly US$800 million in fiscal 2021 to advance ties with the 21 countries listed in the bill.
The bill says that the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) global political influence campaign has contributed to numerous countries in Central America and the Caribbean switching political allegiance from Taipei to Beijing in the past few years.
“Given the proximity of these countries to the United States, these switches in political allegiances necessarily represent a more tangible threat to United States national security interests and must be confronted,” it says, adding that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “ongoing efforts to delegitimize Taiwan, if not checked, increases the risk of armed conflict by threatening to completely isolate Taiwan from any political support.”
It urges Washington to restrict foreign assistance to countries, “particularly those in the Western Hemisphere, who choose to offer full political support to the People’s Republic of China.”
It says that US efforts to condemn the 21 countries’ shift in allegiance to the PRC are undermined by “an incomprehensible adherence to the so-called ‘one China’ policy, on terms dictated by the Chinese Communist Party.”
The CCP has repeatedly used violence or the threat of violence to coerce Taiwan, which is a clear contradiction of the Taiwan Relations Act, as it reads “the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means,” the bill says.
The bill urges the US government to support full diplomatic ties with Taiwan and support Taiwan’s participation in international society, to combat the CCP’s efforts to delegitimize Taiwan.
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 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
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