US announces new policy encouraging government ties with Taiwan officials
- Guidelines ‘encourage US government engagement with Taiwan that reflects our deepening unofficial relationship’, US State Department says
- ‘Working-level meetings’ can now take place inside federal buildings or in the de facto Taiwanese embassy in New York
The US State Department announced on Friday a new policy to “encourage” engagement between American and Taiwanese government officials, a move made to bring Washington into compliance with a law signed by former president Donald Trump.
The new guidelines “encourage US government engagement with Taiwan that reflects our deepening unofficial relationship”, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “Taiwan is a vibrant democracy and an important security and economic partner that is also a force for good in the international community.”
Price said the changes “liberalise guidance on contacts with Taiwan, consistent with our unofficial relations, and provide clarity throughout the Executive Branch on effective implementation of our ‘one China’ policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances”.
The Taiwan Relations Act was signed by then-president Jimmy Carter shortly after Washington switched official diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, and obligate the US government to support Taiwan’s defence capabilities.
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The communiques are agreements between the US and China that formalised the diplomatic switch and allowed “cultural, commercial and other unofficial relations” between America and Taiwan. The “six assurances” refer to commitments Washington made to Taipei in 1982 to disregard Beijing’s opposition to US arms sales to the island.
When asked whether there were any restrictions on what level of US government personnel would be encouraged to connect directly with Taiwanese counterparts, a State Department representative said that meetings could now take place in government buildings.
“As just one example, we now encourage working-level meetings to be held in federal buildings. Such meetings can also take place at Tecro [the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office],” he said, referring to Taiwan’s de facto embassy in New York. “Those meetings were prohibited under previous guidance.”
Analysts credited the Trump administration for helping pave the way for Friday’s announcement.
“The contact guidelines of the past hampered the ability of officials from the US and Taiwan to work together in support of shared interests,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
“It is worth noting, however, that consistent with past practice, the guidelines are not being made public,” Glaser added.
The act also states that the bilateral engagement “should acknowledge the reality that Taiwan is governed by a representative democratic government that is peacefully constituted through free and fair elections that reflect the will of the people of Taiwan, and that Taiwan is a free and open society that respects universal human rights and democratic values”.
China considers Taiwan to be a renegade province and President Xi Jinping has refused to renounce force as a means to reunify the island with the mainland.
Friday’s announcement comes amid heightened tensions between the US and China over Taiwan.
That confirmation coincided with an alert by Taiwanese authorities that 15 Chinese military aircraft, including a dozen fighter jets, had crossed into the island’s defence zone.
On Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki blamed the tensions on Beijing’s actions.
“We’ve seen a concerning increase in PRC [People’s Republic of China] military activity in the Taiwan Strait, which we believe is potentially destabilising,” Psaki told reporters, adding that the US government has “clearly – publicly, privately – expressed our concerns, our growing concerns, about China’s aggression toward Taiwan”.
“This announcement was driven by the recent increase in PRC military activity around Taiwan and by the Biden administration’s finding – echoing Trump’s – that the likelihood of Chinese aggression against Taiwan over the next few years is increasing,” Daly said.
“China will respond to the announcement with enhanced military exercises,” he said. “Let us hope that the US reaction to that escalation will be to propose a discussion between President Biden and Xi Jinping.”
Daly added: “The cycle of signalling and counter-signalling in US-China-Taiwan relations has become too dangerous for national leaders to ignore.”
Additional reporting by Mark Magnier and Owen Churchill
