By David Brunnstrom and Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - The United States said on
Monday it was establishing a new bilateral economic dialogue
with Taiwan, an initiative it said was aimed at strengthening
ties with Taipei and supporting it in the face of increasing
pressure from Beijing.
Washington also said it had declassified six Reagan-era
security assurances given to Taiwan, a move analysts said
appeared intended to show further support for Taipei.
The announcements come at a time of increasing Chinese
threats towards Taiwan, and when relations between Washington
and Beijing have sunk to their worse level in decades while U.S.
President Donald Trump campaigns for re-election in November
with a tough approach to China his key foreign policy platform.
The State Department's top diplomat for East Asia, David
Stilwell, told a virtual forum hosted by the Conservative
Heritage Foundation the latest U.S. moves were not a policy
shift, but part of a set of "significant adjustments" within
Washington's longstanding "one-China" policy.
Washington felt compelled to make these given the
"increasing threat posed by Beijing to peace and stability" in a
vitally important region and Beijing's attempts to isolate
Taiwan diplomatically while subjecting it to military threats.
"We will continue to help Taipei resist the Chinese
Communist Party's campaign to pressure, intimidate, and
marginalize Taiwan," Stilwell said.
The United States, like most countries, has official
relations with Beijing, but not Taiwan, which is claimed by
Beijing as Chinese territory. However, Washington is bound by
law to help Taiwan defend itself and is its main arms supplier.
Daniel Russel, a predecessor of Stilwell until early in the
Trump administration, said the "Six Assurances" had been a
"loosely-kept secret" at best.
He said the decision to publish them looked like a
compromise response to pressure from administration hawks to
abandon "strategic ambiguity" — a long-standing policy of
withholding a clear-cut U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan while
still showing sufficient support to deter any Chinese military
adventurism.
Among the assurances made in 1982, but never formally made
public, are statements that the United States has not set a date
for ending arms sales to Taiwan, nor agreed to prior
consultation with Beijing on such sales, or to revise the Taiwan
Relations Act that underpins U.S. policy towards the island.
The assurances, Stilwell said, "endure today."
Douglas Paal, a former U.S. representative to Taiwan, said
the move appeared largely for show.
"My guess at this time is that Stilwell and the
administration want to look tough ... So they are walking close
to China's red lines, but remain unwilling to cross them."
Stilwell said the economic dialogue would "explore the full
spectrum of our economic relationship - semiconductors,
healthcare, energy, and beyond, with technology at the core."
"While they may be interrelated, our relationship with
Taiwan is not a subset of our bilateral relationship with the
PRC," he said, referring to mainland China.
Monday's announcements come several months after Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd 2330.TW , the world's
biggest contract chipmaker, announced plans to build a $12
billion factory in Arizona as the Trump administration stepped
up efforts to cut back supply chains dependency on China.
Taiwan has been keen to negotiate a free trade agreement
with the United States, but a large U.S. trade deficit, which
Trump has been determined to reduce along with those of other
trading partners, including China, has been an obstacle to this.