US Representative Mike Waltz, nominated by US president-elect Donald Trump to be national security advisor in his upcoming administration, recently emphasized the importance of Taiwan in advanced chip production and global trade.
In remarks delivered at a Reagan Foundation event in California late last month to promote his book Hard Truths: Think and Lead Like a Green Beret, Waltz said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has been "openly talking about the decline of America" and "replacing America as a global leader, the decline of Western values."
Photo: Reuters
Waltz said Xi aims to replace Western values with "essentially a techno surveillance state dictatorship" and described Taiwan as Xi's "next step" after taking control over Tibet and Hong Kong.
The Republic lawmaker from Florida warned of the "implications" of China taking over Taiwan.
"Not only would they control 80 percent of the world's most advanced computer chips, if you look at the geography, they would control the shipping lanes into Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, about 50 percent of global GDP," Waltz said.
"So the stakes are enormous," he added.
Waltz, a retired colonel, was the first Green Beret elected to congress in 2018 after serving multiple tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa.
The Republican lawmaker is a well-known China hawk who currently serves in the House China Task Force that seeks to address the Chinese Communist Party's influence.
Waltz said China has built a military in which their navy and space forces were now larger than those of the US, while the Chinese government was "tripling — not just doubling — tripling the size of their nuclear arsenal."
Waltz said future US presidents should think not just in traditional terms of "tank-to-tank, ship-to-ship," but also in terms of cyberattacks — such as those conducted by Volt Typhoon, a state-sponsored hacking group in China.
According to Waltz, Volt Typhoon is not just spying, but also putting "cyber time bombs into our system."
"The first shot in every war game now is fired in space and in cyber," he said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
RSS