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US, Taiwan to team up on infrastructure projects in Indo-Pacific, officials say
- Plan will support ‘quality infrastructure in emerging markets’, America’s de facto embassy in Taipei says
- Island’s foreign minister says scheme dovetails America’s Indo-Pacific strategy with its ‘New Southbound Policy’
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The United States and Taiwan will work together on infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific region and Latin America, officials said on Wednesday, in a clear counter to Beijing’s massive regional investment plans.
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Washington is deeply suspicious of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative to build roads, railways and other facilities to link China to Europe, Asia and beyond, viewing it as a plan to entrap countries into China’s orbit with debt diplomacy.
Beijing denies this.
The de facto US embassy in Taipei said the new plan would support “quality infrastructure in emerging markets”, while Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said it dovetailed America’s Indo-Pacific strategy with Taipei’s “New Southbound Policy”.
The latter aims to boost economic ties with Southeast and South Asia, to cut the island’s reliance on mainland China.
“The Taiwan-US cooperative partnership relationship has gone up another level,” Wu said.
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There were no immediate details of the volume of funding or investment projects, however.
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