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DATE | 2021-01-12 |
FROM | Ruben Safir
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SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] under reported news on China and Tawian with long
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From hangout-bounces-at-nylxs.com Tue Jan 12 10:33:54 2021 Return-Path: X-Original-To: archive-at-mrbrklyn.com Delivered-To: archive-at-mrbrklyn.com Received: from www2.mrbrklyn.com (www2.mrbrklyn.com [96.57.23.82]) by mrbrklyn.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 046A8163F5E; Tue, 12 Jan 2021 10:33:53 -0500 (EST) X-Original-To: hangout-at-nylxs.com Delivered-To: hangout-at-nylxs.com Received: from [10.0.0.62] (www.mrbrklyn.com [96.57.23.83]) by mrbrklyn.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B56B163F5E for ; Tue, 12 Jan 2021 10:33:47 -0500 (EST) To: Hangout From: Ruben Safir Message-ID: Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2021 10:32:48 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.6.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Language: en-US Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] under reported news on China and Tawian with long term implicaions X-BeenThere: hangout-at-nylxs.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.30rc1 Precedence: list List-Id: NYLXS Tech Talk and Politics List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Errors-To: hangout-bounces-at-nylxs.com Sender: "Hangout"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administrations-third-taiwan-visit-is-no= -charm-for-china-11610458741?mod=3Dlead_feature_below_a_pos1
wsj.com Trump Administration=92s Third Taiwan Visit Is No Charm for China Chun Han Wong and Chao Deng 8-10 minutes
A White House campaign to tighten ties with Taiwan is set to culminate in an 11th-hour visit to the island by a senior U.S. diplomat this week, forcing Beijing into a tricky balancing act as it seeks improved ties with the incoming Biden administration.
China has promised countermeasures against the three-day trip to Taiwan by Kelly Craft, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, though it wasn=92t clear what steps Beijing might take.
Ms. Craft, who is due to arrive Wednesday in Taipei, will be the third senior Trump administration official to visit self-ruled Taiwan in the past year. Her trip begins days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo needled China by nullifying government restrictions on how U.S. executive-branch officials can interact with Taiwan.
A spokeswoman for Beijing=92s Taiwan Affairs Office said China would =93undertake firm and forceful measures to counter any U.S.-Taiwan collusion,=94 state media reported. More on U.S.-China Tensions
Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to assimilate the island, by force if necessary. Chinese officials say they consider Taiwan the most sensitive issue in their relations with the U.S., and have condemned Washington=92s dealings with Taipei as provocative. Those denunciations have grown more frequent over the past year as the Trump administration arranged big-ticket arms sales and high-level visits to Taipei.
China=92s response to the latest U.S. moves has primarily targeted Mr. Pompeo=97a sign, analysts say, that Beijing is reluctant to inflame relations with President-elect Joe Biden, whom Chinese officials have called on to ease bilateral tensions. In a Sunday commentary, Chinese state broadcaster CGTN described Mr. Pompeo=92s gesture as =93a cowardly act of sabotage=94 that =93kneecaps the incoming Democratic administration from Day One.=94
A Chinese military turboprop entered Taiwan=92s southwestern air-defense identification zone on Monday, the third such sortie after Ms. Craft=92s trip was announced last week and the 12th since the start of the year, according to the island=92s Defense Ministry, though such flights have become routine in recent months.
=93I think Beijing has been responding mostly with rhetoric because it knows there=92s not much time in the Trump administration,=94 says Wu Xinbo, director of Fudan University=92s Center for American Studies in Shanghai.
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The Trump administration has drawn the U.S. closer to Taiwan while battling Beijing on a range of issues including trade, technology and global influence. Last year, Washington sent two senior officials to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei, which included the highest-level U.S. visit to the island since Washington cut formal ties with the island in 1979.
The announcements of Ms. Craft=92s visit and the lifting of State Department restrictions on interactions with Taiwan surprised many U.S. foreign-policy specialists. The written restrictions, which aren=92t public, limited the circumstances under which U.S. and Taiwanese officials could interact so as to avoid drawing ire from China.
The lifting of restrictions didn=92t signal a fundamental change in U.S. policy on Taiwan, according to a State Department spokesperson.
=93The United States has long maintained that cross-Strait differences are matters to be resolved peacefully, without the threat or use of force or coercion, and should be acceptable to the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,=94 the spokesperson said.
Taiwan is self-ruled, but Beijing claims it as its territory and has vowed to assimilate the island. Photo: ritchie b tongo/Shutterstock
While some policy analysts decried the moves as a last-ditch effort to box in the Biden administration, others said the president-elect could benefit from it.
With Beijing pinning blame for Washington=92s recent gestures on Mr. Pompeo, the Biden administration and Taipei stand to gain a freer hand to develop two-way relations, said Gerrit van der Wees, a former Dutch diplomat who teaches Taiwan history at George Mason University. =93The Biden administration can start with a new slate.=94
Officials advising Mr. Biden have said that the president-elect will continue working to ensure strong U.S. support for Taiwan, in accordance with a U.S. law that commits Washington to ensure that the island is capable of defending itself.
=93I don=92t think he has to do anything immediately,=94 said Robert G. Sutter, an international affairs professor at George Washington University. =93It=92s fairly easy to lower the temperature without changing much.=94
Taiwan=92s de facto envoy to Washington, Bi-khim Hsiao, spoke to Antony Blinken, Mr. Biden=92s nominee for Secretary of State, in November. Afterward she wrote on Twitter that Taiwan hopes for continued close cooperation with the U.S. in the coming years.
Should Mr. Biden build on the Trump administration=92s Taiwan policy with bolder measures of his own, =93That will be Beijing=92s nightmare,=94 said = Mr. Wu, the Fudan professor. In that case, he said, =94I think Beijing will decide to take strong and substantive actions to force the U.S. to roll back.=94
Ms. Craft will deliver a speech on Taiwan=92s participation in international affairs and hold a joint news briefing with Taiwan=92s foreign minister on Thursday, according to U.S. officials. Both sides have otherwise kept quiet about the rest of her itinerary.
Taiwanese officials and foreign policy experts say Ms. Craft=92s visit carries symbolic meaning regardless of whether it yields concrete policy outcomes. When Ms. Craft met with her Taiwanese counterpart in New York last year, it was at a restaurant, and therefore =93did not possess the immanence of state-to-state affairs,=94 said John Tkacik, a former U.S. diplomat who has served in Taiwan and mainland China.
The easing of self-imposed U.S. restrictions on interacting with Taiwan paves the way for more symbolic changes.
The U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands on Monday tweeted photos of himself hosting Taiwan=92s representative in the country at the American embassy in The Hague. =93Made some history today,=94 he wrote.
Curbs on U.S.-Taiwan engagement have prevented Taiwan from flying its national flag outside its representative office in Washington, sending its defense minister to Washington or inviting U.S. officials to visit Taiwan, according to Wang Ting-yu, co-chair of the Taiwanese legislature=92s foreign affairs and defense committee. In recent decades, Washington has typically only allowed Taiwan=92s president to enter U.S. territory for short visits, while in transit to or from another country.
The rolling back of such restrictions is the culmination of years of effort between the two sides, Mr. Wang said. =93I don=92t think Biden will deny this kind of decision.=94
Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong-at-wsj.com and Chao Deng at Chao.Deng-at-wsj.com
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