Tang Hua, Taiwan’s leader of the navy, will reportedly visit the United States next week to attend a military ceremony and discuss ways to strengthen bilateral naval cooperation as China threatens the island, according to six officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Tang is expected to attend a Pacific Fleet change-of-command ceremony in Hawaii, the site of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and is also scheduled to visit the Sea-Air-Space conference in the Washington area on April 8–10. According to security sources, negotiations are also on to set up a meeting with Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the US chief of naval operations.
Commenting on rumors of Tang’s visit, China’s foreign ministry on Friday urged Washington to “refrain from sending out any erroneous signal to the forces of secession for the independence of Taiwan” and reiterated that Beijing firmly opposes “military collusion” between the US and Taiwan.
Tang will be in the United States as part of the Joint Island Defense Concept, which aims to coordinate countermeasures against China by Taiwan, Japan, and other countries within the “first island chain,” which is a chain that connects the Philippines, Borneo, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, and encloses China’s coastal seas.
Annual security meetings between Taiwan and the United States are customary, but neither side has formally confirmed them. Last year’s attendees reportedly included Taiwan’s foreign minister and the chairman of its National Security Council.
Several senior Taiwanese officials have visited the US in the past years, including deputy defense minister Hsu Yen-pu, who attended a defense industry conference in Virginia last year, and then-navy chief Lee Hsi-ming in 2015.
Though close, the U.S.-Taiwan relationship still remains unofficial as Washington recognizes China and not the democratically controlled island that Beijing claims as its own, according to the so-called “one China policy”.
Since 1979, when Washington shifted recognition to Beijing, Washington and Taipei have not maintained an official diplomatic or military alliance, despite the fact that Washington is legally required to provide the island the ability to defend itself from the PRC. Joe Biden went one step farther in 2022 when he declared that US military would diretly protect Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
During a congressional hearing last week, Adm. John Aquilino, the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, stated that the People’s Liberation Army is actively modernizing its military, and that all indications point to the People’s Liberation Army carrying out President Xi Jinping’s directive to “get ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.”
