Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) were in the US this week for closed-door meetings with US officials, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Wu and Lin were in the Washington area for talks through a format called the “special channel,” the newspaper cited unnamed sources as saying.
Although the “special channel” was first disclosed by the Financial Times in 2021 when Wu met his US counterpart, senior officials from Taiwan and the US have used the mechanism for years to hold talks, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The US government has kept the channel secret to avoid butting heads with Beijing, known for strenuously protesting any sign of diplomatic engagement between Taiwan and other states, it said.
Wu and then-council secretary-general Wellington Koo (顧立雄) met with US officials during the previous “special channel” in February last year, it said.
The security dialogue is usually conducted in the area surrounding Washington, as long-standing practice prevents the nation’s foreign and defense ministers from entering the capital, it said.
Sources did not disclose the location or timing of the talks, the Financial Times said in its report.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office declined the paper’s request for comments, as did the White House.
The special channel is “one of the most sensitive and important mechanisms in global politics today,” Evan Medeiros, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues, was quoted as saying.
“The meeting comes at a critical time given Taiwan’s recent election. Clear and consistent communication between Taipei and Washington is essential, especially as People’s Republic of China pressure grows,” Medeiros said.
The “special channel” was important due to limits on contact allowed by the unofficial relationship between Taiwan and the US, the newspaper cited Project 2049 Institute chairman Randall Schriver as saying.
“A lot of people have the impression that [Chinese People’s Liberation Army] military activity spikes around events like the [former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy] Pelosi visit or [presidential] inaugurations, and then enters a normal and steady status quo, but the PLA continues to do more things and evolve. We are seeing more nighttime exercises and things like air-to-air refueling on the eastern side of Taiwan,” Schriver was quoted as saying.
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