Beijing has long reacted negatively to any efforts by Taipei to normalize or regularize relations with Washington. He denounced trips to the United States by Taiwanese officials and criticized meetings with American officials. Beijing’s opposition and the State Department’s complex rules ensured that most interactions between the United States and Taiwan took place at a relatively low level.
Kelly Craft, the US ambassador to the United Nations, is scheduled to travel to Taiwan this week for a three-day visit to reinforce support for the autonomous island’s expanded participation in international organizations. As cross-strait relations have soured in recent years, China has exerted its growing economic and political influence to destroy Taiwan’s international status, including blocking any attempt by the island to join international organizations like the United Nations.
Over the past year, Taiwan has sought to capitalize on its incredible success in controlling the coronavirus to lobby for its participation in the World Health Organization. The island of 23 million has so far had only 828 cases and seven deaths from the virus, despite its proximity. with the continent.
The Trump administration also addressed the issue, and it was highlighted prominently during a trip to the island last August by Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, the highest-level American visit to Taiwan in decades. China responded to Azar’s visit by sending two fighters to Taiwan, part of a more aggressive stance from Beijing last year, which saw People’s Liberation Army aircraft flying towards the island almost daily.
China, which is vehemently opposed to any diplomatic gesture it considers validating Taiwan’s official status, condemned the news of Craft’s next visit and promised to retaliate.
At a regularly scheduled news conference on Friday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, quoted Pompeo as saying that “some anti-China politicians” in the Trump administration “brought out their final madness, using unscrupulously the remaining days in office to sabotage China-US relations and serve his personal political gains. ”
Pompeo’s announcement was welcomed in Taiwan, which is pushing for closer relations with the United States as Beijing’s behavior becomes more aggressive. Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, said on Twitter that he was grateful to Mr. Pompeo for lifting the restrictions that were “unnecessarily limiting our commitments in recent years”.