According to Joseph Wu, the US is trying to ease decade-long restrictions on the island, which China claims to be its own.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Monday that relations with the United States had become a global partnership after the US lifted decades of restrictions on diplomatic interactions and prepared to send its UN ambassador to the island.
Wu told reporters in Taipei that the decision of outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just a day after the US announced that Kelly Craft would visit the island this week was a “big deal”.
Craft is scheduled to meet Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Thursday, Wu said.
“Taiwan-US relations have become a global partnership,” he told reporters. “The State Department will not disappoint our vigilance and hope to further develop Taiwan-US relations.”
The visit and the easing of restrictions come less than two weeks before US President-elect Joe Biden officially takes office. This is likely to fuel anger in China, which has viewed Taiwan as its own territory and has worked to keep the island isolated from the world stage.
Although the US, like most countries, does not have official relations with Taiwan, it is legally required to provide the means of self-defense and, under President Donald Trump, has increased sales of weapons and equipment and sent high-ranking officials in parades to Taipei Sentencing pulled out of China.
Announcing the move on Saturday, Pompeo said the US government had “unilaterally” limited diplomatic interactions in an “attempt to appease the communist regime in Beijing” and that the situation could no longer continue.
Craft will be the oldest U.S. officer to ever visit Taiwan when she arrives on the island on Wednesday. Previous high-level visits by US officials coincided with an increase in Chinese military activity in the strait.
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