US names Taiwan envoy with China’s position still vacant

Bloomberg

The US appointed a new top representative to Taiwan, in the Biden administration’s latest move to strengthen ties with Taipei amid increasing pressure from Beijing.
Sandra Oudkirk is the incoming director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office, the de facto US ambassador in the absence of official ties, succeeding Brent Christensen later this summer, the institute said in a statement.
Oudkirk takes over at a time of significant change in Taiwan’s relationship with the US and China — and as the Biden administration’s slow pace of naming envoys sees the position in Beijing vacant for the past ninth months.
Washington has sought to beef up its semi-official ties with Taipei in commercial and cultural sectors, to go alongside already robust cooperation in defense, in an effort to push back against what it sees as an increasingly assertive China.
Christian Castro, a former head of Taiwan affairs at the State Department, said one of the most important things
Oudkirk will need is a belief
in Taiwan’s overall strategic
importance and its value as
a global democratic standard bearer.
“What really matters now is for the new director to have the resolve to meet this moment,” he said. “Given China’s aggression towards Taiwan and hostility toward its democratically elected government, it’s no longer business as usual.”
Oudkirk has previously worked at the AIT and most recently served as US senior official for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping, and as deputy assistant secretary for Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. She is the first woman to head the AIT.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen congratulated Oudkirk in a tweet on Wednesday.
While the US has now appointed its top representative to Taiwan, it still doesn’t have an ambassador in Beijing since Terry Branstad left in October last year. Earlier this year, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns and ex-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, were among the leading candidates for the job.
China claims Taiwan as part of it territory, and opposes any official ties or interactions between Taipei and other governments that may imply the island is a separate country.
Taiwan’s government under Tsai views Taiwan as a sovereign nation awaiting wider international recognition. Only 15 countries, mainly small nations in the Pacific and Central America, officially recognise Taiwan.
The US, an ally of the Republic of China government in Taipei throughout World War II and the early decades of the Cold War, switched official ties to Beijing in 1979. Since then it has continued to manage its relations with Taiwan, including regular sales of arms, through the the American Institute in Taiwan.