Free Republic

A US lawmaker on the Senate Commerce and Armed Services committees arrived in Taiwan on Thursday (Aug 25) on the third visit by a US dignitary this month, defying pressure from Beijing to halt the trips. Senator Marsha Blackburn arrived in Taiwan's capital Taipei on board a US military aircraft, live television footage from the downtown Songshan Airport showed. She was welcomed on the airport tarmac by Douglas Hsu, director general of Taiwan's foreign affairs ministry, Blackburn's office said. "Taiwan is our strongest partner in the Indo-Pacific Region. Regular high-level visits to Taipei are long-standing US policy," Blackburn said in...

Japan is reportedly planning to send an "active-duty" defense official to Taiwan to strengthen "information-gathering capabilities" in the wake of increasing Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait. Japan's Ministry of Defense (MOD) is considering sending an official this summer (June to mid-September), reported local website Sankei. Tokyo currently has one retired defense official deployed in Taipei. This official, who is also called the security chief, is equivalent to a defense attaché at a diplomatic mission abroad. Since he is not on active duty, he cannot communicate directly with the MOD but only through diplomatic channels. Japan started posting a defense...