32 2GM Thursday August 6 2020 | the times
Wo r l d
Azar’s trip, described as historic by the
department, would highlight the
island’s “stellar” response to the coro-
navirus pandemic, his department said.
“Taiwan has been a model of trans-
parency and co-operation in global
health during the Covid-19 pandemic
and long before it,” he said in a state-
ment. “I look forward to conveying
President Trump’s support for Taiwan’s
global health leadership and under-
scoring our shared belief that free and
democratic societies are the best model
for protecting and promoting health.
“This trip represents an opportunity
to strengthen our economic and public
health co-operation with Taiwan,
especially as the United States and
Climbing a steep ravine in the Cascade
mountains of Washington state, a
group of search and rescue volunteers
came across a notebook bearing the
name of Gia Fuda, a teenager who had
been missing for nine days.
There had been fears that she had
been kidnapped. Her elder sister was
struck and killed by a train 16 years ago
and her mother told reporters that she
suffered a feeling of déjà vu as the days
passed and her daughter was still miss-
A senior US official is due to travel to
Taiwan soon, marking the highest-
level visit from Washington to the
island since 1979.
The trip by Alex Azar, the secretary
of health and human services, will be
the first by a US health secretary and
the first in six years by any US cabinet-
level official.
It will further infuriate Beijing, which
regards Taiwan as a breakaway prov-
ince to be taken back by force if neces-
sary, at a time when the US-China rela-
tionship is rapidly deteriorating.
President Xi has vowed unification
with Taiwan by 2050, and the People’s
Liberation Army has increased its mili-
tary drills around the island. Washing-
ton has a pact with Taipei to ensure that
the island has the hardware and tech-
nology with which to defend itself. Mr
US infuriates
Beijing with
senior envoy’s
visit to Taiwan
other countries work to strengthen and
diversify our sources for crucial medi-
cal products,” he said.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it
would welcome Mr Azar, whose trip
would take place in the “coming days”.
“This is the highest level visit by a US
cabinet official since 1979,” the ministry
tweeted. “Taiwan and the US are like-
minded partners co-operating closely
in combating #Coronavirus and pro-
moting freedom, democracy and
human rights worldwide.”
The island, one of the first to close its
borders with China in the early days of
the coronavirus outbreak, has had 476
cases and seven deaths.
Beijing is yet to make any official
response to the trip, but Hu Xijin, edi-
tor-in-chief of the Global Times, a
party-run newspaper, called the visit “a
further breach of rules and a geopoliti-
cal show”.
Mr Hu noted that Washington, out of
respect for international rules, had not
sent any official at the secretary’s level,
as is Mr Azar, to Taiwan since 1979,
when Beijing and Washington estab-
lished formal diplomatic ties.
However, in recent months Wash-
ington has increased its support for the
island, which has come under more
pressure from Beijing after President
Tsai of Taiwan, who was elected in
2016, refused to acknowledge Beijing’s
“one China” policy.
Last month Mark Esper, the US
defence secretary, said that China’s
activities near Taiwan were “destabilis-
ing and they significantly increase the
risk of miscalculation”.
After reports that this month Beijing
might stage a large simulated attack on
Dongsha, an island controlled by Tai-
pei, Taiwan has reinforced the outpost
with a company of about 200 Marines,
according to the South China Morning
Post.
Two Chinese fighter pilots flew a
record ten-hour sortie to remote
islands and reefs in the South China Sea
in a demonstration of Beijing’s determi-
nation to defend its claims.
“The goal is not to test one’s limit or
to set a record,” a voiceover on an offi-
cial video of the mission said. “All train-
ing is for real combat.”
Wang Ying, the co-pilot, added: “You
need to think about what’s behind these
ten hours. It means I can strike any-
where within ten hours.”Ta i w a n
Didi Tang Beijing
Henry Zeffman Washington
SPACE XS
paceX laid down
an early milestone
along its hoped
path to the moon
and Mars last
night as its Starship SN5,
a prototype for a new
generation of deep space
voyagers, got off the
ground for the first time
(Jacqui Goddard in
Miami writes).
The test “hop” of
Starship took it 150m
(492ft) into the air over
the launch site in Texas
then down again, settling
itself back on the ground
upright and unscathed in
a giant cloud of smoke.
“Mars is looking real,”
tweeted Elon Musk, the
company’s founder and
chief engineer. Thestainless steel rocket,
resembling a tin can, was
a crude version of what
Musk envisions will in the
future fly payloads into
orbit, take passengers to
the moon and ferry the
first human colonists to
Mars.
The test vehicle lacked
structural features such
as a nose cone but the
flight was a validation of
its propulsion systems,
steering and ability to
withstand the stress of
launch and landing.
“We’ll do several short
hops to smooth out the
launch process, then go
high altitude,” said Mr
Musk, who wants to have
a version capable of
launching commercialspaceship that takes crew
into orbit and then
return... to just share in
that journey, that odyssey,
that endeavour, was one
of the true honours of my
entire life,” said Colonel
Hurley, 53, yesterday.
Their journey home
began with Crew Dragon
undocking from the ISS
on Saturday, then on
Sunday burning its
engines to drop out of
orbit and into the Earth’s
atmosphere at 17,500mph.
“Once we descended a
little bit into the
atmosphere Dragon really
came alive,” said Colonel
Behnken, 50. His wife,
Megan McArthur, 48, also
an astronaut, will fly on
Crew Dragon in spring.Space hopper gives
Mars dream a bounce
Innocent man served 26 years in prison
China
Didi Tang
A man who served 26 years in prison for
murder has been freed after a judge
ruled that his confession was forced.
The decision exposes an opaque system
that often relied on coercion.
Yesterday the high court in the
southern province of Jiangxi declared
Zhang Yuhuan, 53, innocent and the
chief justice apologised and said that he
would be entitled to compensation.
“The decision is based on the princi-ple that there should be no guilty ver-
dict when there is a reasonable doubt,”
Tian Ganlin, the judge, said.
Mr Zhang was arrested in 1993 two
days after two boys aged four and six
disappeared from his village and were
found dead in a reservoir.
The police suspected him because he
“looked nervous” and kept rubbing his
hands when he was interrogated. Mr
Zhang later produced six transcripts, in
two of which he confessed to killing the
boys but with conflicting details. He
later said that he was forced to confessbecause police tortured him and threat-
ened to harm his family.
Detectives used the two inconsistent
confessions to charge Mr Zhang with
murder and in 1995 a local court, citing
“clear fact and sufficient evidence”,
convicted him. Mr Zhang appealed, but
lost a retrial. China began to rectify
wrongful convictions in 2000, and last
year another trial was ordered.
Mr Zhang received a warm welcome
from his mother, who is in her 80s, and
his former wife and their two children,
who had little memory of their father.SpaceX’s Starship SN5 is a
prototype for a vehicle that
Elon Musk hopes will take
the first colonists to Marssatellites into orbit next
year.
It was the second
triumph for SpaceX in
three days. On Sunday, a
test flight of its Crew
Dragon capsule, carrying
the astronauts Doug
Hurley and Bob Behnken,
returned from a two-
month mission to the
International Space
Station (ISS), splashing
down in the Gulf of
Mexico.
“For a company that’s
only been around for a
decade, or a little more
than that, to build aTeenager feared kidnapped is found alive after nine days in woods
ing. Then, on the afternoon of the ninth
day, a team searching the woods found
the notebook by a creek, then a Bible,
car keys and shoes. About two miles
further up they found Ms Fuda, 18, bug
bitten and disorientated but alive.
“She thought she’d only been up
there three days,” her mother, Kristin,
told The Seattle Times. “She’d totally
lost track of time.”
Ms Fuda, from Maple Valley, south-
east of Seattle, finished school in June
and would sometimes drive to a college
in Bellevue to prepare for university,
her parents told The New York Times.On the morning of July 24 she drove be-
yond Bellevue, heading east into the
mountains and stopping at a coffee
shop. About 30 miles deeper into the
mountains her car ran out of petrol, in
an area with no phone reception.
Her parents raised the alarm thatnight. Her car was found the next day,
parked at an awkward angle at the side
of the road. Sergeant Ryan Abbott, a
spokesman for the King County sher-
iff’s office, said her bag was still in the
vehicle, which caused police to fear that
she had been kidnapped.
Hundreds of volunteers mustered in
the mountains. Sergeant Abbott said a
bloodhound tracked Ms Fuda to the
west, towards a town called Skykomish
and a petrol station she had driven past.
But after a mile or so the trail went cold.
She had turned into the woods, mean-
ing to take a short cut, and started up theravine. She was alert when they found
her, albeit confused. “This is a remark-
able ending,” Sergeant Abbott said.
She had no food but she had eaten a
few berries and drunk water from the
creek. The nights had been warm and
her father, Bob, said that she had shel-
tered under trees or rocks or in caves.
She was taken to hospital, where she
was photographed smiling and sipping
a milkshake. “She’s beat up pretty
good,” Mr Fuda told The Seattle Times,
“but there’s no broken bones.”
She was still trying to process what
had happened, her parents said.United States
Will Pavia New York
Gia Fuda, 18, ran
out of petrol in
an area with no
phone signalAlex Azar praised Taiwan’s handling of
Covid-19, of which seven people died