US Signals Stronger Taiwan Ties, Confronts China on International Stage

The United States has upset the Chinese government, which demands adherence to the One China principle, by officially declaring its support for Taiwan’s international presence.

According to the US State Department and Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 22nd, the two countries held a working-level meeting in Taipei on the 21st to exchange views on Taiwan’s substantive participation in international organizations. The US State Department explained that the discussion focused on “expanding Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN system and other international forums.”

Taiwanese and Hong Kong media analyzed this move by the US as an attempt to challenge the One China policy. They highlighted that the US sent two deputy secretaries of state to the discussion and separately gathered diplomats and officials from over 20 countries stationed in Taiwan to discuss cooperation strategies. This includes an unprecedented scale of participants from 12 countries with diplomatic relations with Taiwan and others from Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, the Czech Republic, Poland, the UK, Luxembourg, Belgium, Finland, France, and the European Union.

They also emphasized that the US focused on interpreting the 1971 General Assembly resolution that expelled the Republic of China (Taiwan) from the UN during the discussion. Previously, the UN recognized the People’s Republic of China as the only representative of China by stripping Taiwan of its permanent membership in the Security Council through Resolution 2758 in 1971. Hong Kong’s media outlet Sing Tao Daily reported that China has used this resolution to demand that countries worldwide accept the One China principle and has excluded Taiwan from various international organizations. On the other hand, the US argues that the resolution only addressed China’s representation within the UN and should not be linked with the One China policy.

A diplomat who attended the meeting told the Liberty Times that the US made it clear that “anything not mentioned in the UN resolution is possible” and stressed the need for an accurate understanding of the UN resolution. “We should not limit the development of a richer relationship between the US and Taiwan,” the diplomat added.