Groups petition Obama to help Taiwan

Taipei Times ^ | 3/25/2010 | William Lowther

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Taiwanese Americans met with a US State Department official and one from the AIT to deliver a petition asking that the US president reaffirm the TRA(Taiwan Relations Act).A large group of Taiwanese American organizations is petitioning US President Barack Obama to dramatically increase the US’ ability to stop a Chinese military takeover of Taiwan.

Over the past three months, the group has collected 17,000 letters of support from Taiwan, Japan, Canada and across the US.

They met on Tuesday in Washington with Ted Mann, director of the US State Department’s Office of Taiwan Coordination, and Barbara Schrage, managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), to present a petition to be passed on to Obama at the White House.

“There was a cordial exchange of views,” a State Department source said later.

The petition asks Obama to reaffirm the US’ Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and to “voice concern about the erosion of freedom of speech and assembly and the loss of judicial independence on Taiwan.”

It also asks Obama to send a Cabinet member to Taipei, allow US Navy ships to call at Taiwanese ports and deploy two aircraft carrier task forces to the Western Pacific to maintain the capacity to resist any Chinese attack on Taiwan.

[Westbrook]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

Yeah, right.

Obambi’s gonna help the Taiwanese against his heroes the ChiComs.

Right.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

He would be breaking the law though if he does not help out Taiwan.

[skr]

Wow, are they asking the wrong guy.

[Navy Patriot]

Groups petition Obama to help Taiwan

Rots a ruck

[Dallas59]

Uh huh...Yeah...He’s gonna look at em and agree./s

[Westbrook]

> He would be breaking the law though if he does not help
> out Taiwan.

You forget.

The law does not apply to 0bama and his elite fellow travellers.

The law only applies to proles like us.

[Red Steel]

Taiwan is on their own until after 2012 presidential election.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

you are right

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

We still owe them 6.5 billion worth of hardware.

[Red Steel]

Obama wouldn’t hold up Taiwan’s paid for military hardware would he? Suuuuuure he would.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

If the Pentagon OKd the sale then he must of supported it.There is a chance it might die in Congress

[Outlaw Woman]

Good Luck with that one...

[Red Steel]

I seem to recall we have a treaty with Taiwan?

[max americana]

maybe the Taiwanese need help setting up mandatory health insurance..

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

We had a mutual dence treaty once but it was voided by the United States in 1980. But we have the Taiwan Relations Act(HR 2479) that was passed in 1979.It more clearly defines the American position on Taiwan and its cross-strait relationship with Beijing.

[Domandred]

Good luck with that. Obama is abandoning or insulting all our allies. He could care less if China decides to cross the strait and starts clearing out Taiwan house by house.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I have learned to use the word “impossible” with the greatest caution.”-Dr.Wernher Von Braun

[Oceander]

Won't happen. China has the U.S. by the balls right now - they're one of our biggest creditors, and they will use that power to make us dance to whatever tune they call. Obama would literally wee his pants if he thought the Chinese were about to dump all of their treasuries - heck, the treasury Department just had a hard time auctioning off the latest round of monopoly-money debt - can you imagine what would have happened if the Chinese had dumped several tens of billions of dollars of already outstanding treasuries into the market at the same time?

Forget about our supposedly "dangerous" dependence on foreign oil - that's a subterfuge, a distraction, a lie, if you will - the real danger lies in our addiction - like that of a meth-addict - to borrowing foreign money to feed our insatiable need to spend like money was in infinite supply. There will soon come a time - sooner rather than later - when the Chinese do to us what we did to the British right after WWII. They will impose additional conditions on holding our debt that will be just sufficiently onerous that we will never, ever be able to recover our current preeminent economic position again. All it would take would be adding a couple more percentage points to the debt we owe the Chinese - the US imposed a 2% interest requirement on a multi-billion dollar loan it extended to the UK after WWII for rebuilding - the US had traditionally lent to the UK at 0% interest - and that measly 2% points was all it took to tame the UK economically and make sure that they never constituted an economic challenge to the US. That is, more or less, all the Chinese would have to do in order to totally castrate our economy right now.

Thank God for Democrats!

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

I see your point because of financial reasons, but we cannot leave a people to possible invasion.Espcially people we have promised to help so they can live in freedom.