WELL-TIMED: Richard Armitage and other authors said in a paper the US should routinize its approval process for arms exports to Taiwan and not consult with Beijing

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 18, 2018
By: Nadia Tsao and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporter in WASHINGTON, with staff writer

US President Donald Trump and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), as well as Cabinet-level officials from Taiwan and the US, should meet each other to discuss issues of mutual interest, former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said in a paper published by US think tank Project 2049 on Friday.

In a paper titled US-Taiwan Relations in a Sea of Change: Navigating Toward a Brighter Future, coauthored with Ian Easton and Mark Stokes, Armitage made policy recommendations for US-Taiwan relations, one of which is that Trump and Tsai should have a face-to-face meeting.

Such a meeting should address issues of shared interest and concern, the paper said, adding that it would shatter practice since 1979, when the two nations severed official diplomatic ties.

It would also have far greater implications for the US, Taiwan and China than the telephone call between Tsai and Trump on Dec. 2, 2016, when Trump was still president-elect, the paper said.    [FULL  STORY]