A former top official in Taiwan’s military on Thursday disclosed that he was invited to meet with a senior American official in the White House in 2019, highlighting the cordial ties between the two militaries despite the lack of diplomatic relations.
Lee Hsi-ming (???), a retired admiral who served as chief of the general staff of the Republic of China Armed Forces from 2017-2019, said it is a long-standing practice that senior Taiwanese military officials visit the Pentagon to discuss defense and security issues with American counterparts directly.
However, Taiwanese diplomats were not allowed to enter the Department of State at that time, due to the lack of official diplomatic relations between the two countries, according to Lee.
When he visited the U.S. in 2019 as chief of the general staff, Lee said then U.S. National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger originally invited him to meet at a private club in Washington D.C.
A day before the scheduled meeting, Pottinger said he would like to invite him to meet in a conference room in the White House instead, Lee said.
Pottinger’s invitation surprised Lee and Taiwan’s diplomats in the U.S.. “They told me they didn’t know how to get to the White House because they had never been invited there,” Lee said.
He did not disclose what the two talked about in the White House meeting but said it was a “pleasant one.”
Pottinger even took a photograph together with him in the conference room, Lee said, when most American officials were trying to keep a low profile meeting with Taiwanese officials so as not to anger Beijing.
Lee said he wanted to use the meeting with Pottinger in the White House as a concrete example of how supportive ex-American officials are to Taiwan and how close the two sides are militarily.
Lee made the comments during a seminar held at Taipei-based National Chengchi University attended by Pottinger on Taiwan’s preparedness in the face of a potential Chinese invasion to protect its democratic way of life.
Meanwhile, when asked to comment on President Joe Biden’s repeated remarks that American troops would help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion last September, Pottinger said during the seminar that Biden has made similar remarks repeatedly and he believes Biden means it.
“Because the President of the United States has now said four times, four times, I think quite clearly, that his intention is to send the U.S. military to defend Taiwan in the event that Mainland China launches an attack.”
However, he also said China looks at actions and capabilities first, before they listen to the U.S. president’s statements and Beijing continues to have the “delusion” that a cross-strait war would be easy and successful.
So the militaries in the U.S., Japan, Taiwan, Australia and other partners in the region have to build capability that is “credible, demonstrable” to burst such delusions, he added.
Pottinger also said the U.S. has plans in place to intervene militarily should a cross-strait war break out, when asked if Washington has prepared for that scenario.
“Yes. And not just one,” he said, adding that one of the jobs for leaderships in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command is to prepare for a wide range of different contingencies.
Without going into details, Pottinger said there is plenty of work that has been going on in that area for quite a while now.
“The things that will be important are demonstrating that we can coordinate in the event of a crisis, so that we’re not getting in each other’s way, stepping on toes, that there’s a clear idea of what the roles and responsibilities of the United States and Taiwan and Japan and Australia, and perhaps South Korea, and others will be in the event of a military crisis in the strait,” he added.
Over the past few decades, the U.S. has intentionally maintained a stance characterized as “strategic ambiguity” regarding whether it would come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of an attack by China.
Under this stance, Washington is deliberately vague about whether the U.S. would do more than just provide Taiwan with weapons based on the Taiwan Relations Act and actually send troops to help Taiwan fight China.
Since taking office in January 2021, however, Biden has repeatedly used language that appeared to diverge from this long-standing policy, with an interview he gave in September 2022 being the clearest message he has made on the issue so far.
On each of those occasions, administration officials later walked back the comments and signaled that America’s Taiwan policy had not changed.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel