Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that the United States should grant Taiwan diplomatic recognition.
Right now, Washington D.C. does not treat Taiwan as a country in its own right. That means the United States and Taiwan don’t have embassies or ambassadors in each other’s territories. Instead, they interact through representative offices, which perform most of the normal functions of an embassy.
Speaking in Taipei on Friday, Pompeo said that that system should end. He says US authorities should recognize the reality that Taiwan is “already an independent country”.
Taiwan is not controlled by China, although authorities in Beijing claim Taiwan as a part of China’s sovereign territory. The position of Taiwan’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen, is that Taiwan has no need to formally declare independence, because it is already an independent country under the name of the Republic of China.
Mike Pompeo says that China’s military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan is borne out of fear and paranoia. He says that Taiwan is a successful example of freedom and democracy, and as long as Taiwan’s example exists, it will seriously undermine China’s authoritarianism.
Pompeo says that China will not stop at the forceful takeover of Hong Kong. That’s why he says that the US should support Taiwan, just as it defended West Berlin during the Cold War.