The election of Joe Biden has caused some unease in Taiwan.
Taipei:
Taiwan hopes to continue its close cooperation with the United States, the island’s de facto U.S. ambassador has told Antony Blinken, a longtime confidant of President-elect Joe Biden, as Taiwan works to strengthen ties with the island. the new administration.
Claimed by China but democratically ruled, Taiwan has enjoyed unprecedented support from President Donald Trump’s government, including increased arms sales and visits by senior officials to Taipei. Biden’s election caused some unease in Taiwan.
Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s representative in Washington and close to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, spoke with Blinken by phone to convey Taiwan’s congratulations to Biden, Hsiao said on Twitter on Saturday.
“I appreciated the bipartisan support for US relations with Taiwan and look forward to continuing close cooperation with the United States in the years to come,” she added.
Tsai met Blinken in 2015 at the State Department when he was Deputy Secretary of State and running for president of the Progressive Democratic Party (DPP) of Taiwan.
On this trip, Tsai also became the first Taiwanese presidential candidate to visit the White House, meeting with Evan Medeiros, senior director of Asian affairs for President Barack Obama.
“So it is clear that the Democratic Party government had a friendly attitude towards Taiwan,” Tsai said Wednesday in a statement released by the DPP.
With decades of experience on Capitol Hill, the White House, and as a former No. 2 in the State Department, Blinken is widely seen in Washington as a natural candidate to be Biden’s national security adviser or a possible choice for the Secretary of State.
Biden, a Democrat, has not discussed the role Blinken will play in the new administration.
Tensions around Taiwan have intensified dramatically since Republican Trump took office four years ago, with China holding regular military exercises near the island, including during visits earlier this year to Taipei by many senior American officials.
Taiwanese officials are expected in Washington this week for trade talks, and the island has expressed confidence that these will continue under the new administration, underlining the bipartisan support of the United States for Taiwan.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
