US Minister received by Taiwanese President, historic visit

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen received on Monday August 10 the US Secretary of Health, Alex Azar, who arrived the day before on the island for a visit unprecedented for more than forty years and which was condemned by Beijing.

Alex Azar has been the highest ranking US official to visit Taiwan since 1979, when the United States severed diplomatic relations with the island's capital Taipei in order to recognize the Beijing-based Communist government as the only representative of China.

Washington remains, however, with some ambiguity, the island's most powerful ally and its main supplier of arms.

Alex Azar's three-day visit comes amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing, which clash on a range of topics, from the Hong Kong dossier to trade issues, to responsibilities in the novel coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, the Secretary of Health met Tsai Ing-wen, China's pet peeve who accuses him of seeking formal independence on the island of 23 million inhabitants.

"Effective" management of the Covid-19 epidemic

"Taiwan's response to Covid-19 has been among the most effective in the world, and this reflects the open, transparent, democratic nature of Taiwan society and culture," Alex Azar told the president. Taiwanese during their interview.

Wheels down in Taipei. Our @HHSGov delegation disembarked wearing masks and tested negative for COVID-19.

Honored to be here to convey our support for #Taiwan and their global health leadership. pic.twitter.com/Kwqh2uefhc

Tsai Ing-wen thanked the United States for supporting its efforts to have Taiwan admitted as an observer to the World Health Organization (WHO), while Beijing obtained to exclude Taiwan from the UN agency.

"Political considerations should never take precedence over rights to health," said Tsai Ing-wen, deeming "highly regrettable" Beijing's refusal to let Taiwan be admitted to the WHO.

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.

A few days ago, the Chinese government presented Alex Azar's visit as a threat to "peace and stability".

"Common values" between Taiwan and the United States

The American official swept aside these criticisms on Monday. "The message of the American government that I carry is to reaffirm the deep partnership that unites the United States and Taiwan in matters of security, trade, health and our common values ​​of democracy, economic freedom and freedom", he told reporters before meeting the president.

Had a productive meeting with @SecAzar & the @HHSGov delegation. Thank you to @POTUS and @SecPompeo for supporting the #TaiwanModel & our international participation. Working together, we can prove that democracy is the best system to overcome global challenges. pic.twitter.com/8qztU4ClOK

Alex Azar was critical of China's attitude to a pandemic that appeared on its soil, and that of the WHO. A position he held again on Monday. Taiwan "knew from the start (...) that we should not trust the assertions coming from there (Beijing, editor's note) and the validations made by the World Health Organization", he said .

Alex Azar is also due to meet with his counterpart, Chen Shih-chung, and Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.

Taiwan is one of the territories that has best managed the new coronavirus crisis. Despite its geographic and commercial proximity to mainland China from where the epidemic started, Taiwan has recorded fewer than 500 cases of coronavirus and only seven deaths.

The United States, for its part, is the country where the Covid-19 epidemic has claimed the most lives, with more than 160,000 deaths.

In this context, detractors of US President Donald Trump accuse him of toughening up his tone against Beijing to better make people forget the mistakes of his administration in the fight against Covid-19, three months before the presidential election.

With AFP and Reuters

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