Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Mapping out a third way for the Taiwanese

Michael Danielsen

Since 2008, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been in full charge of expanding Taiwan’s international space. As a result, the KMT bears sole responsibility for Taiwan’s diminishing face and presence in the international community.

This is a worrisome development as the KMT perpetually erodes and trivializes knowledge about Taiwanese and Taiwanese society, making it much harder to promote policies that support the heart of Taiwanese people.

The KMT’s strategy of increasing the distance between Taiwanese and the rest of world and leaving an impression of warming ties between Taiwan and China is a betrayal of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 2008 election promises to put Taiwan first.

US officials to skip Taiwan event

Taipei Times

The US Department of State is declining for the first time to address an annual industry conference on defense and security ties between the US and Taiwan, the event’s organizer said.

US arms sales to Taiwan are a major sore spot with China. Still, the State Department has sent one of its senior officials to speak at the event each year for the past nine years, US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers said in an interview on Tuesday.

“It’s certainly a -disappoint-ment,” he said, although a senior Pentagon official will address the conference.

Taiwan bill introduced in US Congress

Taipei Times

A major new bill to strengthen and enhance the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) has been introduced to the US Congress by Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairperson of the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee.

“With the TRA and the 2000 Taiwan Relations Enhancement Act, it is the most important piece of Taiwan legislation in the US Congress over the past 30 years,” said Coen Blaauw, an executive with the Formosa Association For -Public Affairs.

Known as the “Taiwan Policy Act of 2011,” the bill may have enough bipartisan support to pass the Republican-controlled House, but it is likely to have a harder time in the Senate.

US Congress resolution calls for UN seat for Taiwan

Taipei Times

US Representative Scott Garrett has introduced a resolution to the US Congress declaring that Taiwan deserves membership in the UN.

Garrett, a Republican, did so as the UN General Assembly opened its annual session in New York.

“Year after year, the UN has failed to offer the 23 million people of Taiwan and their freely elected government representation on the world stage,” Garrett said. “The world body can no longer act as if the unelected communist government of the People’s Republic of China truly represents the interests of Taiwan. Currently, Taiwan is the only democratically governed nation in the world that does not enjoy a single vote in the General Assembly.”

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