The U.S. Department of State announced a bilateral political-military dialogue (Taiwan POL/MIL Dialogue) with Taiwan on Wednesday evening (Jan. 6) Washington time, with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Clarke Cooper participating by video message. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded on Thursday morning Taipei time that the dialogue had been held without incident.
The bilateral political and military dialogue is not the first time the U.S. and Taiwan have had a bilateral political and military dialogue, but neither side has made public the relevant information in the past. Some Taiwan political experts have analyzed the dialogue’s itinerary as a continuation of U.S. policy toward Taiwan that will not be altered by the U.S. regime change in two weeks.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Wu Chiu-sup said during a press conference after Thursday’s Executive Yuan meeting with the Voice of America that the details of the bilateral dialogue and the participants were not available to the public based on mutual trust and tacit diplomatic understanding between Taiwan and the United States. But he stressed, “Taiwan and the United States have a multi-level and multi-faceted dialogue channel, and both sides regularly maintain close and very smooth communication on issues of common concern to continue to deepen cooperation at all levels, including political, economic and security.”
Taiwan’s Vice Minister of National Defense Zhang Guanqun responded to a question from the Voice of America at the press conference that the political-military dialogue has been held in previous years, but was changed to video due to the epidemic. He revealed that on Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense side, mainly by the Bureau of Armaments and Strategic Planning Division to do related cooperation, for practical cooperation to discuss.
Details related to the U.S.-Taiwan political-military dialogue have not been released to the public, but at Thursday’s meeting of the Taiwan Executive Yuan, Executive Yuan President Su stressed the significant progress in U.S.-Taiwan relations over the past year, including the passage of a number of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and the Friends of Taiwan Act. For example, in December 2020, the U.S. passed the Taiwan Assurances Act, which calls for the normalization of arms sales to Taiwan.
Lin Yingyou, adjunct assistant professor at the Institute of Strategic and International Affairs at Chung Cheng University in Taiwan, told Voice of America that on a meaningful level, “the (relationship) between Taiwan and the U.S. will not change in a very specific way because of a change of political party or a change of president, and a lot of policies may still have overall continuity.”
Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party legislator Wang Dingyu also said on Wednesday that the U.S. announcement has a new significance, showing that the U.S. Department of State has made the U.S.-Taiwan political and military dialogue an officially recognized official activity, “representing the upgrading of U.S.-Taiwan relations, the past vague strategy, now make it clear, open and normalized. In addition to the upgrading of relations, it also witnessed that the U.S. side is no longer shying away from Chinese pressure, which means that the pressure of the Chinese Communist Party is decreasing in the United States.
He said, “Taiwan’s close cooperation with the United States is a substantial benefit to Taiwan’s international status, national security and economic development, and we are certainly happy to see it.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying condemned this on Wednesday, urging that the U.S. should immediately stop any form of official contacts and military ties with Taiwan to avoid damaging stability in the Taiwan Strait and Sino-U.S. relations.
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