Washington The United States on Tuesday visited the best travel by top envoys to allies in Europe and Taiwan, in a sudden diplomatic turnaround in the chaotic last days of the Trump administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would pay a final official visit to Europe while Washington’s UN envoy Kelly Craft would land in Taiwan on Wednesday afternoon.
But the visits were abruptly scrapped a week before Democrat Joe Biden took office and as President Donald Trump faces an overall second indictment, on a charge he incited his supporters last week to storm Congress.
The U-turn encompasses the turbulent transition period that has enveloped Washington since Biden’s election victory in November.
But it also allows Europe and Taiwan to evade hosting the potentially awkward delegations of an outgoing government.
“It was very late in the game to pay a visit of this level,” Maggie Lewis, an analyst at Seton Hall Law School, which is based in Taiwan, told AFP. “It is appropriate to focus on the incoming government instead of on the last days of the Trump administration.”
Getty
The canceled trips include four turbulent years of foreign policy under Mr. Trump down who tested Washington’s traditional allies in both Europe and Asia.
The two-day stay in Europe would have been Pompeo’s last foreign trip, but the Department of State announced he would stay home to ensure a “smooth and orderly” transition. The US mission at the UN has confirmed to Pamela Falk, CBS News, that the travel department’s cancellation includes the ambassador’s trip to Taiwan.
Pompeo withdraws?
Pompeo’s trip was already in search of limited diplomatic value, as the foreign minister would not meet a top EU official in Brussels.
In Luxembourg, an official told AFP on condition of anonymity that one leg of Pompeo’s trip was canceled after Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, Mr. Trump called him a “criminal” in comments to RTL radio.
Asselborn called Mr. Trump is described as a “political pyromaniac who needs to be brought to justice” over the attack on the US capital last week by his supporters.
AP / Virginia Mayo
Reuters news agency, referring to anonymous European diplomats, reported on Wednesday that Pompeo’s visits to Brussels and Luxembourg had been canceled after Asselborn and EU officials refused to schedule meetings with top US diplomats.
Pompeo would meet with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday during a dinner in Brussels and then sit down with Belgian Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmes.
Pompeo remained loyal to Mr. Trump despite resignations from a string of colleagues in the cabinet and calls to force the president out of office over the attack on the Capitol.
High-interest ties with Taiwan
Craft’s planned visit to Taiwan comes at a very dangerous time for self-governing democracy. Authoritarian China views Taiwan as its own territory and has promised to seize it one day, by force if necessary.
Beijing’s saber has reached new heights with Chinese planes setting a record 380 in Taiwan’s defense zone last year to signal anger over Washington’s burgeoning relationship with Taipei during the Trump years.
The stakes are high. A wrong move in the Taiwan Strait could cause conflict between two economic, nuclear-armed superpowers, with which Biden’s government will have to contend.
The U.S. switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, but it remains Taipei’s leading unofficial ally and has been forced by Congress to sell the island weapons to defend itself.
Since Mr. Trump has had a multitude of issues with China, from the coronavirus to trade and national security, Taipei has become a way to face Beijing.
During his tenure, Mr. Trump signed off on $ 18 billion big card arms deals for Taiwan and increases the frequency of official visits, including sending a cabinet official last year, the delegation at the highest level since 1979.
Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said he had lifted “complex internal restrictions” limiting official contacts with Taiwan. Beijing immediately warned that Washington would “receive a determined counterattack from China” over the move and “pay an expensive price “if Craft visited.
Protecting Taiwan, one of the most progressive democracies in Asia, against a Chinese invasion has become a rare duality in Washington.
But Biden, who has a much less confrontational diplomatic style than Mr. Trump elected has given little detail on what his Taiwan policy could be.
Bonnie Glaser, an expert from Taiwan and China at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Taipei would be “disappointed but also somewhat relieved” by the last-minute cancellation of Craft.
“Taiwan does not want to create friction with the incoming government,” she told AFP.