Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo’s latest move to Taiwan could be a key foundation supporting US-China relations, which will further complicate a strained bilateral relationship just before incumbent President Joe Biden takes office , said former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
“What Pompeo is doing is laying a whole series of landmines for the incoming Biden government … salting the earth in general between the US and China and laying mines in Taiwan in particular,” Rudd told CNBC on Monday. said “Squawk Box Asia”.
Pompeo announced over the weekend the lifting of all “self-imposed restrictions” in US relations with Taiwan – a democratic and self-governing island that claims China as its own territory.
Pompeo said in a statement on Saturday that the United States had for decades maintained a unilateral contact between its officials and their Taiwanese counterparts “in an attempt to appease the communist regime in Beijing.” He then declared that all the restrictions were no longer there.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks to US State Department
Wen McNamee | Getty Images
The move could be the end of the ‘one-China policy’, says Rudd, who is now president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
The one-China policy is the principle in which the US and the international community recognize that there is only one Chinese government – under the Communist Party of China in Beijing.
“It’s been the last forty years or so of the mainstay of strategic stability,” the former Australian leader said.
“I think we need to understand that we are moving towards the end of the ‘one-China policy’. And what does this mean for markets? What does this mean for the international community? It means a new period of real strategic instability, as it is a fundamental point of faith in Beijing, “he added.
The Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, but Beijing considers the reunification of the island with the mainland a possibility, so Taiwan has no right to participate in international diplomacy.
China and Taiwan respond to Pompeo move
China reportedly overturned the U.S. decision to lift restrictions on Taiwan, while Taiwanese Foreign Ministry thanked Pompeo on Twitter.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said China was opposed to Pompeo’s move and would definitely fight back efforts to sabotage its interest, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said the removal of US restrictions on contact with Taiwan by Pompeo was a “big deal”, the news agency reported.
“Relations between Taiwan and the US have been elevated to a global partnership. The State Department will not let us down and hopes to advance the development of ties between Taiwan and America,” Wu reportedly said.
Rudd said Pompeo could be motivated to sharpen US stance on China now so he could attack Biden as ‘becoming soft’ against China should the new government be make any policy changes. Some media reports have named Pompeo as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.
Nevertheless, the Biden government is unlikely to move away from the ‘strategic ambiguity’ that has long plagued U.S. foreign policy over Taiwan, Rudd said.
The ambiguity helps to maintain ‘sufficient doubt’ that the US would defend Taiwan if the island were to take place includes any “reckless policy” such as a unilateral declaration of independence from China, Rudd explains.
The other dimension of the U.S. stance involves the challenge of every assumption by Beijing that Washington will not respond if the continent takes military action over Taiwan, Rudd added.
“This is the strategic ambiguity so far. I do not see it as changing.”