Taiwanese foreign, security delegation meets US officials for closed-door talks

Name: Shanghai officials visit Taipei as local government exchanges resume after 3-year hiatus
Uploaded: 2023-02-22T12:00:11.000Z
Duration: 1 min 47 s
Description: Shanghai officials visit Taipei as local government exchanges resume after 3-year hiatus

Foreign Minister Joseph Wu leads group from the island in seven hours of discussions at the AIT’s Washington Headquarters

In unusual move, plans for the gathering reported well before they took place

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Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and Wellington Koo, National Security Council secretary general, heading to a delegation in Washington. Photo: CNA

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 8:00pm, 22 Feb 2023Updated: 8:18pm, 22 Feb 2023

A group of Taiwanese officials in charge of foreign and security affairs met their American counterparts in closed-door talks in the United States on Tuesday as US-China tensions over the balloon row continued to simmer.

The talks – usually held in secret but flagged in a news report days before they took place – came as the United States sent a deputy assistant secretary of state to Taipei for a cooperation programme, a move observers said would further strain the already complex relations between Washington, Beijing and Taipei.

Led by Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and National Security Council secretary general Wellington Koo, the Taiwanese delegation met senior US officials from the White House, and State and Defence departments at the Washington headquarters of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) on Tuesday.

According to Taiwanese media, the talks, which were part of a special dialogue between the US and Taiwan, lasted for seven hours and Wu and Koo did not take questions from the media as they left the AIT.

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Shanghai officials visit Taipei as local government exchanges resume after 3-year hiatus

Taiwan’s semi-official Central News Agency and Taipei-based United Daily News, which sent reporters to cover the event, said the US officials in the talks included deputy national security adviser Jon Finer and Laura Rosenberger, the National Security Council’s (NSC) senior director for China and Taiwan.