Taiwan must ensure it avoids being a pawn in US push to resume port calls.
The News Lens
Date: 2017/12/15
By: J. Michael Cole
Li Kexin, speaking at the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington last
美軍驅逐艦麥凱恩號。photo credit: AP Photo/Na Son Nguyen/達志影像
week toldhundreds of people assembled at an embassy event, that calls by U.S. Navy vessels at ports in Taiwan would violate China’s “Anti-Secession Law” of 2005 and automatically spark a military response.
The blunt messaging delivered on U.S. soil was ostensibly in response to the passage, on Nov. 30, of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act by Congress, which contains language authorizing the U.S. to evaluate the possibility of re-establishing “regular ports of call by the U.S. Navy at Kaohsiung or any other suitable ports in Taiwan” and allowing Taiwanese vessels to make port calls at U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) yards.
“The day that a U.S. Navy vessel arrives in Kaohsiung is the day that our People’s Liberation Army unites Taiwan with military force,” the Chinese-language Liberty Times quoted Li, the No. 2 at the Chinese embassy, as saying. [FULL STORY]