Last Tuesday a bill was introduced in the US Senate requesting a government review of its policy on Taiwan and an elevation of military ties with Taipei.

“I expect there will be continuing defence sales but the legislation is dangerous and Trump has no understanding of this issue,” she said.

If passed, the Taiwan Assurance Act would mandate a review by the US president of the State Department’s guidelines on US-Taiwan relations and direct the Defence Department to include Taiwan in military training exercises, as well as support arm sales to Taipei.

The legislation echoes an appeal for the US to revisit its one-China policy which was made by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, in an opinion article published by The Wall Street Journal in early 2017 before he joined the White House.

“The bill confirms that the Congress strongly supports Taiwan politically, in part because the sentiment in Congress is fairly anti-China,” said Richard Bush, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. He is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy on the island.

However, Bush said that the bill’s requirement of a Taiwan policy review was “not unprecedented” and predicted the US government would regard the other two items, aimed at furthering military ties, as “a clear intrusion on the president’s commander-in-chief powers and in effect refuse to carry them out”.

In a US House of Representatives hearing last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also vowed to take more action on the Taiwan Travel Act, which was passed unanimously by Congress early last year and permits high-level visits between Washington and Taipei.

Beijing has repeatedly warned Washington to stop any official contacts and cut off all military ties with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a breakaway province to be taken back by force if necessary.

Washington has no formal ties with Taipei, but remains its major arms supplier and is bound by law to help defend the island.

Last week, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen addressed a Heritage Foundation event in Washington, via a live video link, on US-Taiwan and cross-strait relations.

She is scheduled to deliver a second, similar speech to the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies on April 9, a day ahead of the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, the US law which has defined its relations with the island since it switched sovereign recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

The message from Washington has been alarming enough to prompt a former top White House official on Asian affairs to heap scorn on the current Taiwan policymakers in the Trump administration.

“In every corner of the [current Trump] administration, the wrong people are calling the shots,” the former official said, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

“These guys think Beijing will just surrender on trade, Taiwan and technology, whatever,” the former official added.

Edwin Feulner, founder and former president of the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative Washington think tank, said that the US and Taiwan should further their “special relationship with increased practical cooperation”, such as a bilateral US-Taiwan free-trade agreement.

“The Trump administration is more open to ways to demonstrate American support than any other administration in recent memory,” Feulner said.

“Support in Congress for Taiwan from both political parties is higher than it has been for more than 20 years.”

Derek Grossman, a senior defence analyst at the Rand Corporation, said that “clearly the Trump administration – and, quite significantly, the US Congress – are fully on board with bolstering US-Taiwan relations, to include in the defence domain”.

Grossman said that Washington had been proceeding with a “whole-of-government” approach to countering China in nearly every dimension.

“This is likely to include more frequent and higher-calibre arms sales to Taiwan and further integration of the island into Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy,” he said.