The US House of Representatives yesterday passed two Taiwan-related bills aimed at easing limits on bilateral engagement and supporting Taiwan's participation in international organizations.
The first of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, would require the US Department of State to conduct periodic reviews of its guidelines for US engagement with Taiwan and Taiwanese officials.
Photo: Reuters
It would also require the department to report to US Congress every two years on the guidelines, and "identify opportunities to lift any remaining self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement and articulate a plan to do so."
The legislation, which was introduced in February by Republican US Representative Ann Wagner and Democrats Gerry Connolly and Ted Lieu, was passed by a voice vote. It would need to be approved by the Senate and signed by US President Donald Trump to become law.
After severing ties with Taiwan in 1979, Washington developed guidelines to limit official interactions with the nation to avoid angering the People's Republic of China (PRC), which sees Taiwan as part of its territory.
These guidelines have included banning senior US executive branch officials, including high-ranking military officers, from visiting Taiwan, while also blocking Taiwan's top leaders from traveling to the US.
Also, meetings between officials from the two sides have had to meet a list of requirements, such as being held at venues other than in official federal buildings or asking Taiwanese officials not to wear any official uniforms or insignia.
Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo removed the guidelines in the final month of Trump's first term as president, but many were later put back in place during the administration of former US president Joe Biden.
The second piece of legislation consists of amendments to the TAIPEI Act of 2019, which instructs the US government to support Taiwan's membership in international organizations and encourage other countries to strengthen their official or unofficial ties to Taiwan.
The new bill, called the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, would add language to "clarify" that UN Resolution 2758 did not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in the UN or related organizations.
Approved in 1971, UN Resolution 2758 recognized the PRC as the only legitimate government of China, and expelled "the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石)." Chiang was the then-leader of the Republic of China, which governs Taiwan.
The bill would also expand reporting requirements in the TAIPEI Act to include information on China's efforts to undermine Taiwan's international participation and its ties or relationships with other countries.
Versions of both the bills approved yesterday were previously passed by the US House of Representatives in 2023, but were not taken up by the Senate, and thus had to be reintroduced after the new Congress was seated on Jan. 3.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS