US Plan For 'Highest Level' Taiwan Visit In Decades Angers China

The United States announced Wednesday its highest-level visit to Taiwan since it switched diplomatic recognition to China in 1979, a move Beijing blasted as a threat to "peace and stability".

The visit, headed by health chief Alex Azar, comes as relations between the world's two biggest powers plunge to historic lows.

Azar, speaking to Fox News, praised Taipei as an example of good governance, singling out its successful handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Taiwan has been a model of transparency, cooperation and collaboration in the international community," he added. "Their response to COVID has been incredible."

He has previously accused China of attempting to conceal the outbreak, which first emerged in the city of Wuhan late last year.

Azar will be the first cabinet member to visit in six years, and the "highest level visit" by a US cabinet official since 1979, according to Washington's de facto embassy, the American Institute in Taiwan. No date was given yet for the visit.

Washington remains the leading arms supplier to the island but has historically been cautious in holding official contacts with it.

Beijing views Taiwan as its own territory -- vowing to one day seize it -- and bristles at any moves by other countries to recognise or communicate with Taipei.

"China firmly opposes official exchanges between the US and Taiwan," Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said as he called for the visit to be cancelled.

"We urge the US to abide by the one-China principle... to avoid seriously endangering Sino-US relations, as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait."

Taiwan said Azar would meet President Tsai Ing-wen.

"(The) timely visit is another testament to the strong Taiwan-US partnership based on our longstanding friendship and shared values," Tsai wrote on Twitter.

Relations have warmed dramatically under President Donald Trump, who has used embracing democratic Taiwan more closely as a way to hit back at authoritarian Beijing as he clashes with China on a host of issues, including trade and coronavirus.

Taiwan's success at stopping its own virus outbreak -- and its emergence as one of Asia's most progressive democracies -- has also earned the island growing bipartisan support in Washington.

"The Trump administration is increasing its relations with Taiwan to a record-high level, sending a message to China that the US will not sacrifice Taiwan for its relations with China," Eric Huang, an international relations analyst at Tamkang University in Taipei, told AFP.

Shortly after Trump's election win in 2016, Tsai phoned to congratulate him, making him the first president -- sitting or newly elected -- to speak directly with a Taiwanese leader since 1979.

Taiwan is massively outgunned by China and Trump's administration has sold a number of big-ticket military items -- including fighter jets -- that previous presidents more wary of angering Beijing had balked at.

Trump also signed a bipartisan bill in 2018 upgrading relations and allowing more high-level visits to take place.

In their statements Washington and Taipei painted Azar's visit as linked to Taiwan being a leading example in the battle against the pandemic.

Despite its proximity and close economic ties to China -- where the outbreak emerged late last year -- Taiwan has fewer than 500 cases and just seven deaths thanks to a world-class tracing and testing regime and a virtual shutdown of its borders.

But Beijing sees Azar's visit as part of a wider attempt to give Taiwan greater international recognition.

It has ramped up diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Taiwan ever since the 2016 election of Tsai, who rejects Beijing's view that the island in part of "one China".

It keeps Taiwan diplomatically frozen out of global bodies such as the World Health Organization, and has poached its dwindling number of official allies.

That pressure campaign has only bolstered Tsai, who won a landslide re-election earlier this year.

"But it isn't precedent-setting and it is justifiable given Taiwan's exemplary performance in responding to COVID-19 and Beijing's exclusion of Taiwan from the World Health Assembly."