State Department

Catherine Chang, of Taiwan’s news program, The View, discusses Under Secretary Keith Krach’s historic visit to Taiwan. Chang says, the visit ushers in a new era in the Taiwan U.S. relationship.

According to Chang: "The United States Under Secretary Keith Krach arrived in Taiwan at 5:21 p.m.. This is the highest ranking official from the U.S. to visit Taiwan in 41 years. His arrival creates a new historical record for the relationship between Taiwan and the United States. You can see this is Krach when he got off the charter flight. And also we can see that over here, he is greeting the AIT director, Bent Christensen. And this is where we have the Songshan Airport. In particular, the spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State, Morgan Ortagus, issued a statement of Krach visiting Taiwan in the early morning today and the economic dialog, arms sales to Taiwan and lifting the ban of U.S. pork have become the highlight of today, too.

Here are some point.
A: I want to talk about spokesperson Ortagus for talking about the announcement today, saying that U.S. Under Secretary Keith Krach will visit Taiwan to attend the memorial service for former President Lee Teng-hui. And she also emphasized that the U.S. will continue the strong bonds with Taiwan through shared political and economic value. Well, I think the so-called share political and economic value is to rebut China because Pompeo made a statement yesterday that the world had awakend. The tide has turned on global perception of Chinese threats. Therefore, I think what Ortagus means is that the U.S. has common political and economic values with Taiwan, but not with China.

B: Keith Krach proposed a new economic platform in May, which is EPN, Economic Prosperity Network with members including the members that we’re talking about. U.S., Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and India. Is it possible that Taiwan might join? Therefore, besides signing the BTA, joining the EPN will be another highlight for the US Taiwan dialog.

C: As for arms sales, according to Reuters, you know that the U. S. will carry out a new wave of arms sales to Taiwan, which may have seven major items, including cruise missiles, drones and the high mobility artillery rocket system HIMARS. I think that pursuing seven military system at once is very, very rare. This is also a gesture of the United States to show China that they don’t care about or so-called 817 Communiques.

D: As to U.S. pork, CECC head Chen Shih-chung started the first stop of the demonstration of the U.S. pork label today in the well known Dihua Street Market. Well, look at these so we can see that this is CECC head A-Jen attending the activity today. This is where we’re talking about the pork and this is how we label it.

E: I want to talk about, although there was a saying today that Krach will not preside over the economic and trade dialog because the oppose of the USTR, the United States Trade Representative. USTR wants to handle the talk themselves. However, I don’t think this is a big deal because Taiwan and the U.S. will still communicate in the form of pre-dialog tomorrow except US Under Secretary of State Krach and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights, Robert Destro also visit Taiwan today. I want to say Under Secretary, talking about Krach and Assistant Secretary Destro, Taiwan welcome you.