Sullivan meets with president of Taiwan in highly symbolic act that sent a message to communist China

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Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on March 31 in New York City. The senators showed their support for the island democracy and Sullivan emphasized that China has no right to dictate whom foreign leaders can or cannot meet with.

Sullivan added that the US Senate does not serve the Chinese Communist Party’s interests and that Taiwan is not isolated, despite the CCP’s propaganda. This is his fourth meeting with President Tsai and he led this delegation.

Sullivan later tweeted that he sees Taiwan as the 21st Century’s West Berlin, as it stands as a defender of democracy against a powerful, expansionist authoritarian regime.

The Taiwanese president is meeting today with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles. She was met with strong support from pro-Taiwan supporters who gathered at the airport and later in front of her hotel. Meanwhile, a small group of pro-communists demonstrated nearby, chanting “One China.”

Tsai’s meeting with McCarthy and a bipartisan group of a dozen or more lawmakers will take place in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Chinese top officials call the meeting a “provocation” that violates the one-China principle, under which the United States, since 1979, has recognized the CCP as the sole legitimate government of China, while maintaining unofficial relations with Taiwan. Under the one-China principle, the U.S. simply recognizes that China thinks it has sovereignty over Taiwan.

In November, President Joe Biden told China President Xi Jinping that the U.S. stand on one-China is unchanged, and he told the media he does not think there is an immediate threat that China will invade the island, which is a democracy.

On March 29, Sullivan and Rep. Mike Gallagher reintroduced the “Sanctions Targeting Aggressors of Neighboring Democracies (STAND) with Taiwan Act of 2023,” which seeks to impose significant economic sanctions against China if it invades Taiwan. The same bill was introduced in 2022 by Sullivan and would require approval from both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as the president.

23 COMMENTS

  1. > met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on March 31 in New York City.

    Profile in courage. But he got to do the important bit…

    >Sullivan later tweeted that he sees Taiwan as the 21st Century’s West Berlin

    So we can blame you if portions of AK are charred in the next war that you goaded on?

  2. Nice gesture.

    We can’t back it up due to Biden’s Ukraine obsession and the state of wokeness in the military. But the gesture will keep China at bay.

  3. This is a clear demonstration of leadership from Senator Sullivan. Taiwan is 1000% more important to the United States than Ukraine. Every appliance in your home and vehicle in your garage uses semiconductor chips built in Taiwan. Chinese President Xi has promised to reunify Taiwan and mainland China, by force if necessary. Should Taiwan be invaded by an attempted military conquest from mainland China, it would stop all chip production and devastate the world’s economy. Senator Sullivan gets that. He is spending political capital to show support for Taiwan’s president. Good for him demonstrating leadership.

    • TOTALLY AGREE!!! … Alaska is uniquely located with a plethora of resources to offer the world, with a stable government and exceptional environmental standards, a very talented and capable workforce, with the brightest minds within the resource development industry.
      If only we could gain access and acquire the necessary permits within a reasonable amount of time.

  4. I fully support the free and independent Republic of China on Taiwan, and all that heavy-handed “One China” propaganda by the mainland Red Chinese is only so much buttwipe.
    .
    I hope that if the mainland Communists ever try to invade Taiwan, that Taiwan has at least a few secret nuclear weapons that they can lob towards Peking in retaliation.

  5. China has been working on a peaceful unification of Taiwan.Sullivan is doing everything that all warmongers are known for,pushing for confrontation.

    • Peaceful unification? Would that include military exercises off the coast. Fighter planes buzzing the coastline? Harassment of any other country who enters those waters? Massive military buildup? BTW, Biden is the one sending billions to Ukraine and military equipment.

    • Peaceful? By making it clear they will use force, at some point, to reunify if “peaceful” options don’t work? That’s kinda like holding a knife to someone and politely asking them for their wallet, but also telling them that if they don’t give it up, you’ll stab them. ‘https://www.newsweek.com/china-military-force-taiwan-diplomacy-1507263

      Taiwan doesn’t want the PRC’s system imposed on them – and who would? I guess we should just roll over and let it happen, because we’re too afraid of China. Or we could help defend democracy.

  6. I don’t have any problem with Senator Sullivan making contacts with Taiwan. It helps both the US as a whole and Alaska. Ukaine is teaching us how unprepared we are for the coming war with China, and Ukraine has both depleted Russian military resources and uncovered how poor those resources are. That will help with the almost inevitable war with China, N. Korea, and Russia. But since the US has not won a war since WWII there is no certainty with the outcome of that likely war. At the very least that war would cause severe supply shortages in Alaska. Biden is allowing India to sit on the fence to pick up the spoils: Hopefully a Republican elected to the White House next year would not allow that. No one seems to be giving due credit to Trump for his efforts to force NATO members to increase their defense spending, and you could say that Putin has succeeded where Trump failed. Win or lose a war between the US and China could bring the loss of many cities across the globe, especially in the US and in China, and there would be a global recalibration that could extend for 100 years. I would expect China to use everything they have including nuclear warheads, disease spreading technologies, and destructive satellites. Alaskans who believe this war is possible should accumulate ammo, fuel for cooking and transportation, and other consumables, and ways to protect them from theft. A working short wave radio, and possibly a ham radio could be useful. Gold and silver coins could become necessary, as could medical supplies.

  7. This just confirms that Sullivan is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Does he really think it is a good idea to provoke China while our proxy war in Ukraine is not going very well? Maybe we should win that war before starting another – now there’s a novel idea!

  8. So how much does Doyon Government Group and by extension your wife and her family stand to gain if you can foolishly scare up some needless hostilities at the expense of the rest of us, Danny?

    And how closely does your own investment portfolio mirror the rest of the neocon rabble and the globalist far left you’re aligning yourself with?

      • And you come across like a low-IQ oaf and a toady for an oafish Senator who conducts himself like a toady for an assortment of special interests rather than a statesman.

        Was there some kind of point you were struggling to make when you’d posted that bit of idiocy?

  9. Sanction China? Now that we have outsourced our industry primarily to China and are dismantling our reliable domestic energy, moving to unsustainable wind/solar, sourcing the infrastructure from China, as well as financing trillions of dollars in federal spending, using treasury notes as collateral, worthless paper IOUs held by China, we are going to sanction them? The entire world is moving away from trade in dollars precisely because they are tired of being manipulated by the clowns who run our country, like Sullivan. Sanctions against Russia have strengthened them, destroyed Europe (our blowing the Nordstream was the final stake to the heart of German industry), destroying our alliances. Maybe we should restore democracy, rebuild our industry, commence real education, reform the university system to offer useful and actual degrees of higher learning at home instead of supporting manic power games for the corrupt regime that occupies Washington.

  10. Symbolic or not, excellent move. Sullivan’s stock in trade just went up with me significantly. He appears to be finally getting up on step. Salute.

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