The U.S. government plans to send a high-level delegation of former senior officials to Taiwan after the Taiwanese presidential election on the 13th, the Financial Times (FT) reported on the 10th (local time).
The bipartisan delegation includes James Steinberg, a former deputy secretary of state from the Democratic Party, and Stephen Hadley, a national security adviser from the George W. Bush administration.
President Joe Biden has twice sent high-level delegations of former officials to Taiwan to reassure the island, under pressure from China, of the United States’ firm support.
Bonnie Glaser, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund (GMF), a U.S. think tank, emphasized, “Sending messages of our support for Taiwan’s democracy and for the new president is important, and doing that on a bipartisan basis is beneficial.”
The Chinese Embassy in the United States promptly expressed opposition in a statement, asserting that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China.” The embassy emphasized that China is against any official contact between the U.S. and Taiwan.
FT observed that sending a high-level delegation immediately after the Taiwanese presidential election is unusual and could anger the Chinese government. Some believe that such a decision by President Biden could backfire. FT quoted a U.S. official as saying, “The most important goal for the U.S. at this sensitive time is to urge restraint on both China and Taiwan,” and pointed out that “sending a high-level delegation could be seen as a strong embrace of Taiwan and could provoke excessive action by China.”
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