As I see it | Mike Pompeo’s curiously timed Taiwan shift turns focus on Biden’s approach
- Scrapping restrictions on American officials’ contact with the self-ruled island has angered Beijing
- Taking a more provocative stance in Donald Trump’s last days in office may lock in actions president-elect Joe Biden will struggle to reverse
Although details of the policy change remain unclear, it has upended another American diplomatic tradition maintained since Washington-Beijing ties were normalised in 1979, and, in the words of former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, laid “a whole series of landmines” for the incoming administration of Joe Biden.
In the first of the publicly announced interactions, the US ambassador in the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, said on Twitter that he had hosted Taiwan’s representative to the country at his office on Monday.
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Why has the relationship between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan taken a turn for the worse?
It is no secret that Beijing has for decades made it a top priority for its diplomats to isolate Taiwan internationally and block any official exchanges between their host countries and the self-ruling government in Taiwan. Beijing has been hypersensitive to the “interference of external forces” in cross-strait affairs and has never renounced the use of force in realising Beijing’s reunification dream for Taiwan.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned on Monday of “a resolute counterstrike” and “severe punishment”, while the state-controlled nationalist tabloid Global Times went ballistic, advocating a strong response including a war to pre-empt further provocations. It directed the anger towards Taiwan’s independence-leaning government and its president, Tsai Ing-wen, saying that Pompeo’s provocative steps “may toll the knell for Taiwanese authorities”.