Seventy-eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a joint letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling for the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to be renamed the “Taiwan Representative Office,” requesting a comprehensive update of the guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and supporting bilateral U.S.-Taiwan free trade agreements. Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Ou Jiang’an expressed his appreciation and continued to strengthen the all-around cooperative relationship between Taiwan and the United States.
Seventy-eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a joint letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on 17 EST, calling for the name “Taipei” to be changed to “Taiwan Representative Office” on the grounds that it does not truly reflect the strong relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan, and supporting the bilateral negotiation of a free trade agreement.
The letter notes that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has taken many actions in support of Taiwan during his tenure, and now is the time to address the three issues of U.S.-Taiwan relations.
In Taipei, MFA spokesman Ou Jiang’an thanked the two co-chairs of the Congressional Taiwan Connection in the U.S. House of Representatives, Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), for their joint letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, calling on the U.S. government to agree to change the name of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office to the U.S. Representative Office in Taiwan, to ease the outdated restrictions on U.S.-Taiwan relations, and to support the signing of a free trade agreement (FTA) between Taiwan and the United States.
Mr. Ou said, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to express its sincere appreciation to the above-mentioned members of the House of Representatives for their friendly actions in support of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. The overall strengthening and enhancement of Taiwan-U.S. relations has been a long-standing goal of our government’s work with the United States and is in line with the expectations of the Taiwanese people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the U.S. Representative Office will continue to maintain close contact with the U.S. side to pursue our best interests and continue to steadily deepen the all-round partnership between Taiwan and the United States.
The Congressman pointed out in his letter to Feng Pei-O that for the past 40 years, the U.S. Department of State has not referred to Taiwan by such terms as “Taipei” or “Chinese Taipei,” and that exchanges between the United States and Taiwan are not limited to central-level officials in Taipei, but also to other local governments and people, so the term “Taipei” does not truly reflect the connotation of bilateral relations.
The lawmakers said that last May, the American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) counterpart, the North American Affairs Coordinating Committee, was renamed the Taiwan American Affairs Committee, and that the U.S. should further expand these policies by renaming the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office to the United States (commonly known as the Representative Office in the United States) to the Taiwan Representative Office.
In addition, the lawmakers also called on Pompeo to take into account the increasingly robust relationship between the United States and Taiwan by issuing an updated version of the “Guidelines for Engagement with Taiwan.
The lawmakers noted that over the years, the guidelines have placed many non-essential restrictions on U.S.-Taiwan relations, including where U.S. government and Representative Office officials can meet. These restrictions exist primarily to manage tensions with China rather than to advance U.S. interests in the U.S.-Taiwan relationship.
After the United States announced the establishment of diplomatic relations with China and severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, the United States established the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and Taiwan established the North American Affairs Coordinating Council (NACAC) in the United States, and the NAC established an office called the North American Affairs Coordinating Council (NAC). A joint letter from 78 members of Congress calls for a change in the name of this agency.
Recent Comments