Taiwan hopes for support from Biden on ‘China matters’ during Trump’s leadership
The United States had broken all its ties with Taipei in 1979 and since then there was no acknowledgement of the Asian country by the west power. But as the 45th President, Donald Trump took oath, this came to an end with a phone call between President Tsai Ing-wen.
This was confirmed by the Taiwanese foreign minister Joseph Wu as he reportedly told the lawmakers to arrange a phone call with the democrat leader. “On the topic of congratulating the U.S. president-elect, we will do it in the most appropriate way. We are communicating about this. We are considering various ways, including a phone call, to congratulate the new president.”
It is expected that China will create a lot of hurdles in this demand made by Taiwan and even in 2016, the Xi Jinping administration called the phone call a gimmick. China calls Taiwan its territory even though it is not known to any if Chinese has actually ruled or lived in the territory ever.
Like the United States has always feared communism spread all over the Asian countries and did everything in its power to control it, this time was no different for Donald Trump. Taiwan is hoping for similar involvement and backing from the Biden administration. Though it will be hard to say if Biden will actually move towards Taiwan and take radical steps as coming from the Obama administration, Biden is not known to go deep in such matters but the possibility of him developing interest in South-Asian politics will be a positive step.
Tsai was one of the first ones to congratulate Biden and the Vice-President kamala Harris on their victory where she expressed her desire for them to work together to strengthen US-Taiwan relations and ‘contributions to international society’.
President Biden’s next step will be the determining factor of how China-US relations turn out from here on. Will Biden be taking the same, tough stance against China and oppose its autocracy over other states or will the new administration go into defensive mode and will start to dodge such matters.
Despite its developing relations, Washington does not recognise Taiwan as a country, it has backed the country against an anti-China stance. Biden has spoken to leaders of South Korea and Japan but he is yet to address Taiwan and its officials. Coming days will witness some long term issues and decide how the South-Asian region will shape in the next five years.
