4 b
Strategic Vision vol. 10, no. 51 (December, 2021)
Building Connections America can contribute to stronger relations between India and Taiwan Patrick Mendis & Antonina Luszczykiewicz
photo: ROC Presidential Office
A
Former ROC Vice President Chen Chien-jen, right, receives Indian scholar Vandana Shiva at the Office of the President.
lthough US President Joe Biden’s White House has openly stated it would not support Taiwan independence, the first year of Biden’s presidency has seen a significant tightening of US-Taiwan relations. Since the unprecedented invitation of Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, the White House under the 46th US president has been intensely developing both political and economic relations with Taiwan—which most recently led to resuming talks on the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). This US-Taiwan revival was not initiated by
President Biden, however. It was rather his predecessor, President Donald Trump, whose decisions left the new administration with little room to deviate from his aggressively anti-China—and as a consequence, pro-Taiwan—strategy. Only a few days before President Trump left the White House on 20 January, 2021, his National Security Council declassified the US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific as one of the last maneuvers of Trump’s presidency. In the declassified document, the Trump White House recognized China as the biggest “threat” and a strategic “com-
Dr. Patrick Mendis is a former American diplomat, a professor in the NATO and the Indo-Pacific Commands of the US Department of Defense, and a distinguished visiting professor at National Chengchi University. Dr. Antonina Luszczykiewicz is an assistant professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and served as a visiting scholar at Academia Sinica.