Televisions show a news broadcast of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Taipei, Taiwan, on Jan. 11. The Trump administration removed decades-old restrictions on interactions with Taiwanese officials just days before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.
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Bloomberg via Getty Images
As Pompeo Dumps Rulebook For U.S.-Taiwan Relations, Some See 'Trap' For Biden
By
at
11:19 am
NPR
The U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands sent a jubilant tweet on Monday, claiming to have "made some history today." He had welcomed Taiwan's de facto ambassador into the U.S. Embassy for a meeting.
For the past four decades, it's been generally off-limits for U.S. ambassadors to invite Taiwanese officials into embassies. Ever since the United States switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing from Taipei in 1979, America's relations with the government in Taiwan have been unofficial. To keep it that way, a complex and ever-changing set of rules has guided how executive branch officials should deal with the Taiwanese.