July 09, 2014

Taiwan ‘to cast cloud’ over Beijing talks

Featuring Ely Ratner, and Michèle Flournoy

Source: Taipei Times

Journalist William Lowther

Taiwan will hang like a “dark cloud” over the sixth meeting of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing this week, according to a leading US-China expert.

“Over the past six years, Taiwan and China had made significant progress in normalizing their economic relations — but this progress hit a wall this spring,” Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard Bush said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew are to meet with Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang (汪洋) today and tomorrow at what is being seen as a critical time to work on stabilizing US-China ties.

“Neither Taiwan nor Hong Kong will likely be on the formal agenda for the S&ED, but they will hang like rather dark clouds over the proceedings,” Bush said.

He said the tensions in Hong Kong reached a new peak last week as nearly 800,000 people participated in an unofficial referendum in support of a liberal approach to electoral reform and hundreds of thousands braved bad weather to march in support of the same goal.

Read the full article at Taipei Times

Authors

  • Ely Ratner

    Executive Vice President and Director of Studies

    Ely Ratner is the Executive Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he is a member of the executive team and responsible...

  • Michèle Flournoy

    CNAS Board of Director, Chief Executive Officer, WestExec

    Michèle Flournoy is CEO of WestExec and is the former CEO of CNAS, an organization she co-founded. She serves on the CNAS Board of Directors. She served as the Under Secretary...