US delegation to Taiwan will look to ease tensions, observers say

Chris Dodd, a former US senator and friend of Joe Biden, arrived in Taipei on Wednesday for a three-day visit

Biden administration may use unofficial visit to ‘ask Taiwan to be more prudent in handling cross-strait relations’, island’s former foreign minister says

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Former US senator Chris Dodd is met by Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu on his arrival in Taipei on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00am, 15 Apr 2021Updated: 1:24pm, 15 Apr 2021

Chris Dodd, a former US senator and long-time friend of Joe Biden, is expected to relay the US president’s concerns over the security of the Taiwan Strait and his desire for Taipei and Beijing to refrain from taking provocative action, observers said.

Accompanied by former US deputy secretaries of state Richard Armitage and James Steinberg, Dodd arrived at Songshan Airport in Taipei on Wednesday afternoon for a three-day visit.

“Once again this visit, coming less than three months after Biden took office, demonstrates the firm Taiwan-US relationship and the US bipartisan support for Taiwan,” said Xavier Chang, a spokesman for the island’s President Tsai Ing-wen.

While Dodd was known as a close friend of the US president, Armitage and Steinberg were “no strangers to Taiwanese public” as they had visited many times, he said.

Dodd said last year he had “served in the trenches for 30 years” with Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Tsai and the US delegation were expected to discuss the future of Taiwan-US ties during a meeting at the presidential office on Thursday morning and a dinner reception in the evening, Chang said.

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