Biden to send US delegation to Taiwan for inauguration of William Lai

In 2016, then-president Obama sent John Negroponte, deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush for the inauguration of Tsai’s first term as president. Negroponte led the delegation with former US trade representative Ron Kirk. Raymond Burghardt, then chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) – the de facto US embassy on the island – also attended, among others.

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William Lai wins Taiwan presidential election

The coming term of Lai, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), follows more than eight years after current President Tsai Ing-wen first came to power, ushering in an era of higher tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

The Biden official explained that “intensified diplomacy” between Washington and Beijing over the past year had been aimed at “clearing up misperceptions [and] being clear about the US one-China policy – what that means and what it does not mean”.

Last month, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with China’s defence minister, Admiral Dong Jun, the first such communication with his Chinese counterpart in over two years and the first time since Dong was appointed in December, following a protracted period during which direct, military-to-military – also known as “mil-mil” – talks were on ice.

Less than two weeks later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Blinken and Wang spent nearly six hours discussing their differences, including tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on April 26. Photo: AP

Pressed for details about the role that Biden officials’ meetings with mainland Chinese counterparts have played with respect to the Taiwanese election, the official also credited discussions between US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Wang in Thailand in January.

These talks, the official said, were key “to ensuring that we don’t accidentally stumble into conflict, that on the mil-mil side, how both sides react in certain situations are clear and explained”. The official asserted that Sullivan’s effort, together with the mil-mil talks, put US-China dialogue “in a slightly more stable position than where we were a year ago”.

The delegation led by Deese and Armitage is also to include Laura Rosenberger, the current AIT chair, as well as former AIT chair Richard Bush, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

In 2012, Obama sent a delegation with a similar makeup, led by Steinberg, for the inauguration of Taiwan’s then-president Ma Ying-jeou.

Taiwan’s inauguration of Tsai for her second term, in 2020, occurred during the early stages of the Covid-19 epidemic, preventing then-president Donald Trump from sending a US delegation.

Beijing regards both Lai, who is Ing-wen’s vice-president, and his running mate Hsiao Bi-Khim as dangerous “separatists” and “troublemakers”.

Regardless of who is in power in Taipei, Beijing sees Taiwan as a part of China that will eventually be reunited, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington opposes any attempt to take the island by force and remains committed to supplying it with weapons.

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