American lawmakers have introduced a flurry of bills in the past two years to improve Taiwan’s defenses and raise its international exposure as legislators backed by  President Donald Trump step up resistance against China, an old rival of Taipei, analysts say.  At least five pro-Taiwan bills have appeared in the U.S. Congress since February 2018, an unusually fast pace. It’s largely because President Trump has championed Taiwan’s cause for self-rule since his inauguration in 2017 amid spats with China over trade and geopolitics. China sees Taiwan as part of its territory, not as an independent  state.  Legislators, influenced by a Taiwan lobby in Washington as well as anti-China sentiments among American voters, have made the most of Trump’s policy to get their bills signed into law, political observers believe. Trump’s predecessors focused more on maintaining ties with Beijing.  FILE – In this Dec. 2, 2016 photo released by Taiwan Presidential Office, Dec. 3, 2016, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen speaks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump through a speaker phone in Taipei, Taiwan.“As President Trump is so far the most pro-Taiwan U.S. president since de-recognition in 1979, Congress may want to send him as many Taiwan bills as possible, knowing that he’ll actually sign them into law,” said Sean King, vice president of the Park Strategies political consultancy in New York.  In 1979, the U.S. government severed diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favor of China, a fast-growing power at the time. Washington still recognizes Beijing but sustains strong informal relations with Taiwan. U.S. officials see the democratic island as one in a chain of democratic allies in East Asia.  “U.S.-Taiwan relations are right now in a mini-golden age, and the island’s many supporters presumably want to make the most of it,” King said.  In February 2018, Congress approved the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages high-level government exchanges between Taipei and Washington. The same year it passed the Taiwan International Participation Act. The participation bill advocates that international organizations include Taiwan — despite China’s customary opposition.  Last year saw Congress approve the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, which directs the State Department to tell Congress about government moves aimed at strengthening Taiwan’s diplomatic relations “partners” in the Indo-Pacific.  In February this year, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz proposed a bill to undo a ban on Taiwanese diplomats and military personnel displaying Taiwan’s official flag on U.S. government property. In May, Rep. Mike Gallagher introduced the Taiwan Defense Act to ensure the United States can help Taiwan resist China’s “aggressive military build-up” by maintaining the ability to fend off a Chinese invasion.  Legislators are making up for lost time, some scholars say.  They felt that “for many years [the United States] was doing too much to limit itself in its relations with Taiwan,” said Denny Roy, senior fellow at the East-West Center research institution in Honolulu.     Congress members feel too that “since China has generally acted in bad faith, Washington is no longer as concerned as before about avoiding actions that will antagonize China,” Roy said.   Lawmakers are sighting Taiwan because China cannot strike it without risking military conflict — fallout that analysts believe officials in Beijing are unready to absorb.  “I think there is a tendency to focus legislations on Taiwan, because Taiwan is the one issue that China cannot really fight back,” said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center research organization in Washington.  Chinese officials oppose pro-Taiwan legislation in Washington and urge the United States to stick to its “One-China principle” that forbids formal diplomatic recognition of the island.  FILE – Gen. Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese strongman, delivers a stirring appeal to his people by radio in an undated photo.China has seen Taiwan as its own since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists lost and fled to the island. China resents other countries for aiding Taiwan’s military or elevating diplomatic ties.   Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment Monday on the U.S. legislation.  Taiwan-U.S. relations have been guided since 1979 mainly by a single law, the Taiwan Relations Act. The act lets Washington provide Taiwan arms and “maintain the capacity” to resist force or “coercion” that threaten Taiwan. The defense act introduced in May would “restore the original intent” of the 1979 law, Roy said.  Trump and American lawmakers hope the recent bills as a whole will press China for “concessions”, said Alex Chiang, associate professor of international politics at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “China has to take notice and China may need to do some action in order for the United States to stop this kind of activity,” Chiang said.  Although language in the newer bills commits Washington to little specific action, the laws are written in a way to reflect changes in Taiwanese people’s “identity” and “aspirations” since the 1979 law took effect, Sun said. Taiwanese citizens told government polls last year they want their island to remain self-ruled — after Chinese President Xi Jinping advocated unification.
 
“All these more recent reactions are really to protect Taiwan against the PRC aggression,” Sun said.
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Australia is ordering non-essential businesses in Melbourne, its second-largest city, to close for six weeks starting Wednesday as authorities try to control an outbreak that accounts for nearly all of the country’s new coronavirus cases. Health officials reported Monday 429 new COVID-19 infections and 13 deaths in Victoria state, which includes Melbourne. In addition to closing most stores, other industries such as construction and meat production will have to limit their operations starting Friday. The Victoria government declared a COVID-19 disaster in Melbourne on Sunday, and with the new restrictions going into effect, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Monday that workers in Victoria who do not have paid sick leave and have to isolate themselves will be eligible to receive a payment of about $1,000. Such payments are meant to encourage people to abide by advice that they stay home if they test positive, exhibit symptoms or may have been exposed to the virus, instead of feeling financial pressure to keep working and possibly expose others. “It’s heartbreaking. This pandemic, this virus is taking a heavy toll and now’s the time, as it has been throughout this pandemic, that we continue to provide support to one another,” Morrison said. In the United States, which has about one-fourth of the world’s 18 million confirmed coronavirus cases, negotiations are continuing Monday between the White House and congressional Democrats on a new aid package that would include federal money to help the millions of people who are unemployed.   Many lost their jobs during the pandemic as lockdown restrictions and new consumer habits badly hurt the economy, and a previous round of federal aid that provided $600 a week to the unemployed expired last week.First responders receive antibody testing for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Arizona, July 10, 2020.The talks come as the United States deals with an ongoing surge in cases that began in June and pushed leaders in some states to reinstate some of the restrictions they had lifted in hopes economic activity could return without a resurgence of the virus. White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx told CNN Sunday the outbreak has hit a new phase in the United States with the spread of the virus becoming “extraordinarily widespread,” reaching rural areas as much as big cities. “To everybody who lives in a rural area: You are not immune or protected from this virus,” Birx said. In the Philippines, where the total number of cases has surpassed 100,000, new lockdown restrictions go into effect in the capital, Manila, and five densely populated provinces for a period of two weeks. During that time, people will be allowed to make only essential travel and mass transit will be barred. Medical groups in the country had asked for the reimposition of restrictions in order to allow health workers under the strain of caring for coronavirus patients a chance to regroup and for the government to recalibrate its efforts in response to the pandemic. “Our health care workers are burnt out with the seemingly endless number of patients trooping to our hospitals,” the medical groups said in a letter to Duterte. 
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Australia’s southern Victoria state has been placed under a state of disaster as a surge of new coronavirus cases continues to engulf the nation’s second-largest state. Under the decree announced Sunday by Premier David Andrews, an evening curfew is now in effect from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. local time for five million residents of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria. Residents will only be allowed to shop and exercise within 5 kilometers of their homes, and only one person per household will be allowed to leave their homes once a day to pick up essential goods. All schools will shut down and switch to remote-based learning. The only exceptions to the rule are for work or to receive medical care.Medical workers speak at the entrance of the Epping Gardens aged care facility in the Melbourne suburb of Epping on July 29, 2020, as the city battles fresh outbreaks of the COVID-19 coronavirus.The new restrictions extend Melbourne’s current six-week lockdown for another six weeks. Premier Andrews said Sunday 671 new COVID-19 cases, including seven deaths, had been recorded, bringing its total number to 11,937 and 136 deaths. Victoria is expected to report over 400 cases on Monday.   All of Australia now has a total of 17,938 novel coronavirus cases and 208 deaths.  
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Samuel Chu, one of six activists now living overseas who Hong Kong has reportedly issued arrest warrants for under its new national security law, has told VOA he will not stop fighting for democracy for Hong Kong.According to China’s state television, Chu, an American citizen originally from Hong Kong who has lived in the United States for 30 years, and five other Hong Kongers who have fled the city for political reasons, are wanted by Hong Kong police for allegedly “inciting secession and collusion with foreign forces to endanger national security.”Chu, 42, is a founder and managing director of Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, which has lobbied the U.S. government to take action on China for the erosion of Hong Kong’s democracy.The Hong Kong police and government have not officially confirmed the news. Hong Kong’s top leader, Carrie Lam, said Saturday it was “inconvenient” to comment on the enforcement of the national security law but said opposition to the Hong Kong or Chinese governments “is not a way out.”The five others include Nathan Law, a pro-democracy campaigner and ousted lawmaker who recently fled to Britain, Simon Cheng, a former British consular staffer who was granted asylum in Britain after alleging he was tortured in China, and activist Ray Wong.A former British Consulate employee, Simon Cheng, speaks during a protest against Hong Kong’s deteriorating freedoms outside China’s embassy, in London, July 31, 2020.If confirmed, this would be the first time Hong Kong authorities have used the sweeping national security law enacted a month ago to target campaigners living outside Hong Kong.Chu told VOA the authorities are trying to use the new law to intimidate and “create fear.”Article 38 of the law says nonresidents can be prosecuted for acts outside of Hong Kong, implying that critics of China – including Hong Kong’s large diaspora – may face legal risks if they enter the city.Chu is the first foreign national targeted by the law and he said he is “a test case” of how the law would work.  He said neither he nor his family have heard from the Hong Kong or Chinese authorities.China, he said, “is sending a threat to Hong Kong people that if you have connections [with the six activists], you might be implicated,” he said.By pursuing him, though, the Chinese government is actually alerting Americans to the fact that not only Hong Kongers will be affected by this law, but also U.S. citizens, he said.  The Chinese authorities are “provoking and inviting foreign response every time they use the law,” he said.“Millions of people are now understanding that if they can go after us, they can come after anybody,” he said.Chu said by aggressively targeting overseas activists, China has become “the greatest threat to [its] own national security.”FILE – A video screen shows the results of the vote on a piece of national security legislation concerning Hong Kong during the closing session of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing, May 28, 2020.“The most egregious danger they have is the national security law because they’re inviting all kinds of actions against themselves,” he said. “They are inviting the U.S. to step up response, both politically and policywise.”Chu’s 76-year-old father, the Reverend Chu Yiu Ming, a veteran pro-democracy activist who has helped activists from the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown escape abroad and a co-founder of the 2014 civil disobedience Occupy Central movement, was convicted and given a suspended sentence for his role last year. China often harasses the families of dissidents or activists living abroad in exile to silence them. Activists also sometimes find themselves the target of harassment and intimidation by unidentified people, suspected to be security agents.He insisted that as a U.S. citizen, it was his constitutional right to advocate and lobby the U.S. government.“I would not stop what I’m doing,” he said. “They are not going to scare me into hiding and they’re not going to erase me from being able to speak out.”“This is why we created the Hong Kong Democracy Council.  We always knew there might come a time when the only free organization and voice for Hong Kong might be us,” he said. “It was created to be the last frontier to be able to speak freely.”Chu, however, said he was “sad” that the trip he made to Hong Kong last year to attend his father’s trial “might be the last for a long time.”Nathan Law, former chairman of the now-disbanded Demosisto pro-democracy group, would not comment for this article, but said on Facebook that the alleged national security crimes he was accused of breaching were “trumped up charges” and the result of him “loving Hong Kong too much.”Pro-democracy activists, from left; Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Agnes Chow attend a press conference in Hong Kong, May 30, 2020.Law, 26, said he was saddened by the news in Hong Kong last week, which included the arrests of four student activists on national security charges, the disqualification of 12 pro-democracy candidates for the legislative election and now the wanted list that included his name.“These are indications of our need to remain active on the global stage. That Hong Kong has no place for even such moderate views like ours underscores the absurdity of Chinese Communist rule,” he wrote.In a poignant note that highlighted his fears over his family being implicated, he declared he would sever his relationship with his family, saying his advocacy work overseas was conducted in his own personal capacity. Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said China wants to send a message that it cannot accept Hong Kongers, even those abroad, lobbying foreign governments or organizations.“They want to warn Hong Kong activists against pursuing international lobbying, otherwise they’ll arrest and extradite them,” Lam said. To foreigners, the message is “don’t interfere in Hong Kong affairs, otherwise you’d harm activists like Nathan Law.”“China is very determined and is acting quickly. More people will be arrested in the near term.  They will further silence and stop intellectuals and journalists from expressing opinions and target democracy activists,” he said. 
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