Minister invited to virtual meeting at White House
Taiwan has been invited to attend a senior-level virtual meeting on the future of the internet hosted by Washington.
The invitation – a further sign of the US regularising high-level official contacts with Taipei – is expected to once again provoke an angry response from Beijing, which regards Taiwan as part of its territory that has no right to develop formal ties with foreign governments.
The island’s digital minister, Audrey Tang, will attend the minister-level meeting to be hosted by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White Hous, according to Taiwan’s foreign ministry.
More than 50 countries will take part in the event, during which they will jointly sign and launch the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, which the US State Department has described as a political commitment to advance an affirmative vision for the internet and digital technologies.
“Because of our achievements in promoting internet freedom and e-governance, we have been invited to the event and digital minister Audrey Tang will represent us to take part in the virtual meeting,” Douglas Hsu, the foreign ministry’s director of North American affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Hsu said the US and Taiwan would provide detailed information to the public after the meeting, which will be live-streamed on the White House’s website.
The US has deepened its relations with Taiwan since Donald Trump became president in 2017. Joe Biden has followed Trump’s policy of moving closer to Taiwan and countering the mainland.
In response, Beijing has expanded its military activities and ramped up pressure on Taiwan, including sending warplanes into its air defence zone almost daily and staging military exercises nearby in an attempt to intimidate the island.
In December, Tang attended Biden’s Summit for Democracy – another virtual event that angered Beijing – and discussed Taiwan’s digital democracy with representatives from more than 100 nations.
Earlier this month, Sullivan said the Biden administration had expressed concerns about Beijing “taking efforts to unilaterally change the status quo”.
He told a meeting of the Economic Club of Washington DC that it was US policy to ensure that a mainland takeover of Taiwan would not occur.
Despite repeated protests from Beijing, the White House has continued its policy of developing “rock-solid” relations with Taipei, a move the island’s security chief, Chen Ming-tong, said was due mainly to the overlapping of national interests between Taiwan and the US.
“Since 1949, the US and Taiwan have stumped for each other in terms of security and many other issues. Because of their mutual support, [Taiwan] has continued to exist and this is a reality,” Chen told Taiwan’s lawmakers yesterday.
“The national interests of Taiwan and the US have highly overlapped, and this is why we must count on each other,” Chen said after lawmakers had asked about the reports the island had been under pressure from the US to buy Boeing 787 passenger jets in a US$8 billion deal in exchange for support.
During a meeting with the island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, on April 15, visiting US Senator Lindsey Graham reportedly told her he hoped Taiwan would buy the planes, made in his South Carolina constituency, to strengthen US-Taiwan economic ties.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry and presidential office denied the reports, calling them sheer speculation.
Presidential spokesman Xavier Chang said it was normal for politicians to promote products made in their constituency, and it should not be seen as pressure.