US infuriates Beijing with envoy Alex Azar’s planned visit to Taiwan

A US delegation will make the country’s ‘highest level’ visit in decades to Taiwan. And China won’t be happy.

US secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, right, speaks alongside President Donald Trump in the White House Rose Garden. Mr Azar will lead the US’s ‘highest level’ visit in decades to Taiwan. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

A senior US official is due to travel to Taiwan soon, marking the highest-level visit from Washington to the island since 1979.

The trip by Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, will be the first by a US health secretary and the first in six years by any US cabinet-level official.

It will further infuriate Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province to be taken back by force if necessary, at a time when the US-China relationship is rapidly deteriorating.

President Xi has vowed unification with Taiwan by 2050, and the People’s Liberation Army has increased its military drills around the island.

Washington has a pact with Taipei to ensure that the island has the hardware and technology with which to defend itself. Mr Azar’s trip, described as historic by the department, will highlight the island’s stellar response to the coronavirus pandemic, his department said.

“Taiwan has been a model of transparency and co-operation in global health during the Covid-19 pandemic and long before it,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to conveying President Trump’s support for Taiwan’s global health leadership and underscoring our shared belief that free and democratic societies are the best model for protecting and promoting health.

“This trip represents an opportunity to strengthen our economic and public health co-operation with Taiwan, especially as the United States and other countries work to strengthen and diversify our sources for crucial medical products,” he said.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it would welcome Mr Azar, whose trip would take place in the “coming days”.

‘Like-minded partners’

“This is the highest level visit by a US cabinet official since 1979,” the ministry tweeted. “Taiwan and the US are like-minded partners co-operating closely in combating #Coronavirus and promoting freedom, democracy and human rights worldwide.”

The island, one of the first to close its borders with China in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, has had 476 cases and seven deaths.

Beijing is yet to make any official response to the trip, but Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a party-run newspaper, called the visit “a further breach of rules and a geopolitical show”.

Mr Hu noted that Washington, out of respect for international rules, had not sent any official at the secretary’s level, as is Mr Azar, to Taiwan since 1979, when Beijing and Washington established formal diplomatic ties.

Taiwan under pressure

However, in recent months Washington has increased its support for the island, which has come under more pressure from Beijing after President Tsai of Taiwan, who was elected in 2016, refused to acknowledge Beijing’s “one China” policy.

Last month Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, said that China’s activities near Taiwan were “destabilising and they significantly increase the risk of miscalculation”.

After reports that this month Beijing might stage a large simulated attack on Dongsha, an island controlled by Taipei, Taiwan has reinforced the outpost with a company of about 200 Marines, according to the South China Morning Post.

Two Chinese fighter pilots flew a record ten-hour sortie to remote islands and reefs in the South China Sea in a demonstration of Beijing’s determination to defend its claims.

“The goal is not to test one’s limit or to set a record,” a voiceover on an official video of the mission said. “All training is for real combat.”

Wang Ying, the co-pilot, added: “You need to think about what’s behind these ten hours. It means I can strike anywhere within ten hours.”

The Times