(ATF) US President Joe Biden on Wednesday sent a high-level delegation to Taiwan, underscoring both continuing tense ties with China and the island’s increasing importance to global supply chains.
Taiwan’s presidential office said former US senator Christopher Dodd and former deputy secretaries of state Richard Armitage and James Steinberg would land in Taipei on Wednesday afternoon.
“Once again this visit demonstrates the firm relationship between Taiwan and the US,” presidential office spokesman Xavier Chang said. “It is strong as a rock.”
Over the past year, Beijing’s sabre-rattling has increased considerably with Chinese fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers breaching Taiwan’s air defence zone on a near-daily basis. A record 25 Chinese military jets and bombers breached Taiwan’s defence zone on Monday.
While Washington diplomatically recognises Beijing as sovereign over China, the US maintains relations with Taipei and is bound by an act of Congress to sell the island defensive weapons. It also opposes any attempt by China to change Taiwan’s future by force.
VITAL PARTNER
Donald Trump, Biden’s predecessor, ramped up contacts and visits to Taiwan by US officials as relations between Washington and Beijing plunged over a host of issues.
Analysts said the visit is also an acknowledgement of Taiwan’s vital role in keeping America’s industry on track.
“Ongoing disruption to global automotive production has highlighted the extent to which semiconductors have become an essential input in products that aren’t traditionally considered electronics and also how dependent the world is on Taiwan to produce them,” Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, said.
Automakers have struggled to source semiconductors recently, mainly because chipmakers are responding to surging demand for electronics products during the coronavirus pandemic.
But this concentration of production heightens the risk of a shock to supply, Williams said.
“Taiwan is prone to earthquakes, which have knocked out power to chipmakers in the past. It is suffering a drought – semiconductor production requires huge volumes of water,” he noted.
The biggest threat comes from an increasingly belligerent China and its pledge to unify with Taiwan, if necessary by force.
With reporting by Agence France-Presse
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