The Presidential Office today thanked the US for enacting the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which requires the US Department of State to regularly review and update guidelines governing official US interactions with Taiwan.
The new law, signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday, is an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 focused on reviewing guidelines on US interactions with Taiwan.
Previously, the department was required to conduct a one-time review of its guidance governing relations with Taiwan, but under the new bill, the agency must conduct such a review "not less than every five years."
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, Bloomberg
It must then submit an updated report based on its findings "not later than 90 days after completing" the review to the US Senate and House of Representatives foreign relations committees.
The office in a statement today thanked Trump for signing the bill into law.
The move “carries great significance in that it affirms the value of US interaction with Taiwan, supports closer Taiwan-US relations and stands as a firm symbol of our shared values of democracy, freedom and respect for human rights,” office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement said the legislation would strengthen implementation of the 2020 Taiwan Assurance Act and ensure updates to contact guidelines that keep bilateral ties on a steady trajectory.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) thanked the US administration and Congress for their bipartisan support, and described the act’s signing as "a major step forward in US-Taiwan relations."
Updating the guidelines through more frequent reviews would allow both sides to engage more fully, including enabling Taiwanese officials to visit federal agencies for meetings, he said, although the measure did not specify such an outcome.
The bipartisan measure, introduced in February by US representatives Ann Wagner, the late Gerry Connolly and Ted Lieu, passed the House unanimously in May and cleared the Senate last month by unanimous consent.
After Washington severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979, the State Department established internal "red lines" governing contact between US diplomatic, military and other officials and their Taiwanese counterparts.
In January 2021, during Trump's first term, then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced the termination of all existing restrictions on US-Taiwan contacts.
The administration of former US president Joe Biden later reinstated contact guidelines, but relaxed them, allowing routine meetings between US officials and Taiwanese representatives at federal agencies and at Taiwan’s representative office in Washington.
Additional reporting by Kayleigh Madjar
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