US sends Secretary of Health to Taiwan

Since 1979 the United States has not sent a high-ranking official to Taiwan, with whom it has no official diplomatic relations, but Trump’s decision to send the Secretary of Health to the United States creates a new point of friction in the already difficult relationship with China. . The official American attitude is very cautious with Taiwan, however there are offices of American institutions on the island that formally operate as real diplomatic representations. For now, the will of Washington, which has been a constant in the various successive administrations, even of a different political sign, has been marked by caution so as not to hurt China, with which, however, we wanted to maintain a cordial relationship. The nationalist turn of China and the desire to establish itself as a world power, but above all having as its objective the territorial reunification to exercise its influence in the maritime routes, is forcibly changing the US intentions. Trump’s electoral needs are added to the American program of economic and commercial supremacy, which also led to sanctions against Beijing, at the moment given by the polls. It is important for the tenant of the White House to place Biden in a kind of weak position against China, as a dangerous factor for the USA in case of victory for the Democratic candidate. It is also true that after the Chinese attitude towards Hong Kong, the threats already made towards Taiwan take on particular significance. The United States could not remain inert to a possible Chinese military invasion of the island of Formosa; keeping this reflection in mind, the sending of a high-ranking member of the American government would be part of a preventive diplomatic action: a sort of warning to China and its possible intentions about military actions. Another cause of the American decision, certainly not in contrast with the previous ones, is to underline the attitude of Taiwan and the differences with China regarding the pandemic, so as to imply the mismanagement, and even further, of the spread of the virus. This aspect is functional for Trump to try to push away his mismanagement of the pandemic in the United States, by placing the initial responsibility for the medical crisis on China. Now the bad management of the American president on the spread of the virus is more than a fact regardless of where the virus came from and although there are many doubts about Chinese silences at the beginning of the pandemic. A desire to protect Taiwan is certainly acceptable, both for the maintenance of democratic rights, especially after they are canceled from Hong Kong, and to limit Chinese action in the international field and to preserve the possibility of navigating commercial shipping routes, however it is the timing of this action that is suspect, because it coincides with one of Trump’s moments of greatest difficulty at home: both from the point of internal image and due to electoral difficulties. As for the objection of a possible weakness of Biden towards China, this does not seem possible because the path of relations with China seems to be marked regardless of who the next American president will be and which party he will belong to. Certainly there may be different modalities regarding the relationship with China, but by now the opposition is too high and the interests too conflicting to reach, at least in the medium term, more relaxed relations. On the other hand, the relaxed relations remained such until China has expressed its desire to increase its ambitions as a great power, therefore the possibility of a different attitude on the part of the USA, simply cannot be contemplated. One of the reflections that once again imposes itself on this matter is the confirmation of Trump’s inadequacy to hold the most important political office in the world, because his vision is too limited to American internal interests, without contemplating the indirect benefits of proper management of the diplomacy of the first world power, but not only, in addition to such a limited political vision there is also a clear element of personal interest that seems to be able to be placed in the foreground compared to its own government policy: a bad quality for who is the president of the united states.