The United States will soon send its most eminent delegation to Taiwan since it ceased to diplomatically recognize the island in 1979, a gesture which risks aggravating Sino-American tensions. The US office in charge of trade relations with Taiwan has confirmed that US Secretary of Health Alex Azar will head the delegation to visit the island. "This marks ... the first visit by a member of government in six years," the American Institute in Taiwan said, adding that no member of the US government of such high rank has visited. "since 1979".
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It was in that year that the United States severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in order to recognize the Beijing-based Communist government as China's sole representative. They remain, however, with some ambiguity, the island's most powerful ally and its main supplier of arms. Taiwan confirmed the next visit, specifying that Alex Azar would meet with President Tsai Ing-wen on this occasion.
"Mutual trust"
"Minister Azar has long been a close friend of Taiwan," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the visit was "proof of the solid foundations of mutual trust" between Washington and Taipei. Neither Taiwan nor the United States has specified the date of this visit. Despite bilateral ties, the United States has traditionally been cautious in the nature of official bilateral contacts.
However, that changed with Donald Trump, who moved closer to Taiwan as relations deteriorated with Beijing on a number of subjects. The island's remarkable successes against Covid-19 and its assertion as one of the most progressive democracies in Asia have also earned it broad support on the American political spectrum.
Shortly after his election, Donald Trump became the first US president to meet with his Taiwanese counterpart since 1979, when Tsai Ing-wen called him to congratulate him. The Trump administration has ramped up sales of sophisticated military equipment to the island, including last summer's sales of hunters. The last visit to Taiwan by a member of the US government was in 2014 by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. The previous one dated back to 2000, when Bill Clinton's Transportation Secretary visited the island.
"Transparency model"
In their press releases, Washington and Taipei present Alex Azar's visit as linked to the pandemic. Despite its geographic and commercial proximity to mainland China, where the epidemic started, Taiwan has recorded fewer than 500 cases of coronavirus, and seven deaths, thanks to a very thorough strategy of screening and tracing of contacts. that the patients had had. The island also took the initiative very early to close its borders.
“Taiwan has been a model of transparency and cooperation in health during the Covid-19 pandemic, and long before that,” said Alex Azar. China should not fail to condemn this visit, which has made every effort to isolate the island even further since the arrival to power in 2016 of Ms. Tsai, from a political formation traditionally hostile to Beijing.
The People's Republic of China considers Taiwan to be one of its provinces. The island is ruled by a rival regime which took refuge there after the communists seized power on the mainland in 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war. Taiwan is not recognized as an independent state by the UN. And Beijing threatens to use force in the event of a formal proclamation of independence in Taipei or external intervention, in particular from Washington.
"Beijing will strongly oppose the visit and likely see it as further proof that the Trump administration is turning its back on the 'one China' policy," Bonnie Glaser of the Center told AFP. for strategic and international studies. "But it is not a precedent and it is justified in view of Taiwan's exemplary performance against Covid-19 and Taiwan's exclusion from the WHO under Chinese pressure."