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Bloomberg
A senior US military officer who oversees intelligence gathering for the Indo-Pacific Command made an unannounced visit to Taiwan, Reuters reported, a move that risks further raising tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The visiting official was US Navy Rear Admiral Michael Studeman, Reuters said,
citing two unidentified sources. In a statement, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it welcomed the visit of an “unidentified US official†but declined to give more details because the trip “has not been made public.†A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment when asked about the trip.
The visit is the latest show of support from the outgoing Trump administration, which has sold Taiwan billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and sent the highest-level delegation to the self-governing democracy in four decades.
Taiwanese officials have also said the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency could visit Taipei this year. “This visit could be more symbolic than functional as other interactions between Taipei and Washington would be frequent enough to promote bilateral cooperation,†said Wu Shang-su, a research fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.