Senior United States congressman and co-chair of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus Steven Chabot said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the Joe Biden administration will approve a name change for Taiwan’s representative office in Washington despite Beijing’s strong objections.
Commenting on the issue during a recent interview with the CNA, Chabot said he thinks there is “a real possibility” that the name of Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the U.S. might be changed from the existing “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to “Taiwan Representative Office,” as reported by the United Kingdom-based Financial Times last month.
“I think that makes sense. I think we ought to do it. I’ve supported legislation to do that. And I commend the Biden administration for working in that direction. I hope they follow through,” he told CNA.
“We’re not there yet. But I’m going to continue to work on that until we get it done.”
Chabot said he would not estimate when the name change will happen as China will try its best to push back on this proposal. “I’m cautiously optimistic. But I don’t want to put the cart before the horse as they say,” he added.
The congressman’s comments came after the Financial Times on Sept. 10 cited several anonymous sources close to the matter as saying that the Biden administration was “seriously considering” a request from Taiwan to change the name of its representative office in Washington.
According to the report, both sides had discussed the issue at the end of the Donald Trump administration, but Taiwan made a formal request to the Biden government in March.
The report said White House Asia policy adviser Kurt Campbell was in favor of changing the office’s name, while the request has also earned wide support in the National Security Council and from State Department Asia officials.
Any final decision will have to be made by President Biden, who must sign an executive order before the name can be changed, the report said.
According to the Financial Times, China’s embassy in Washington said it “firmly opposes” and urged the U.S. to stop any official interaction with Taiwan, and to refrain from sending the wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces or challenging China’s bottom line.
Both Taipei and Washington did not confirm the Financial Times report. Critics of the reported name change have argued that the move, when realized, is mostly symbolic and has no substance in terms of promoting closer Taiwan-U.S. exchanges.
However, Chabot said when it comes to Taiwan and China, “some symbolism is substance in many ways here.”
“We’ve seen that many times because virtually everything that Taiwan does, the PRC takes offence at it, and pushes back and tries to block things. So we should never be intimidated by that, and we should continue to move forward,” he said.
The 68-year-old Republican, who has served Ohio’s First Congressional District for 24 years, is a long-term supporter of Taiwan and is one of the co-founders of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, which was formed on April 9, 2002 and focuses on improving American-Taiwanese relations.
Asked about the reason for co-founding the caucus, Chabot said he and other congresspersons did so nearly two decades ago as they believed “Taiwan needed more than a little help.”
Taiwan needed a caucus of its own in the U.S. Congress and the best chance of making the caucus succeed was making it bipartisan, according to Chabot. Ultimately, two Republicans and two Democrats working together to co-found the Taiwan Caucus.
Started with 85 congresspersons, the Congressional Taiwan Caucus has over the years grown and become the largest country caucus in the U.S. Congress with over 200 members, surpassing even the India caucus.
Over the past two decades, Chabot introduced or co-signed nearly 100 pieces of Taiwan-friendly legislation, including the Taiwan Travel Act, which was signed into law by Trump in 2018.
The act, which serves as a follow-up to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, allows “officials at all levels of the United States Government, including Cabinet-level national security officials, general officers and other executive branch officials, to travel to Taiwan to meet their Taiwanese counterparts.”
The act paved the way for the visit of former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to Taiwan in 2020, the highest-level visit by an American Cabinet official since the break in formal diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in 1979.
Chabot said he was pleased to see the act passed into law and the Trump administration did use it though he is hoping that it could be used more often.
“The Biden administration, I also think, has not used it enough. And we’re encouraging them to do that,” he pointed out.
Chabot said he would love to see Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (???) visit and address the Congress. He also added he would not be satisfied until President Tsai Ing-wen (???) addresses a joint session of the House and the Senate in the Capitol Building.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel