The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported today that the US Biden administration and Congress are considering sending government officials to Taiwan, including working in government departments, starting next fall.

(Reuters)

[Central News Agency] The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported today that the US Biden administration and Congress are considering sending government officials to Taiwan from next fall, including working in government departments.

The report said that China has stepped up pressure on Taiwan, and the Biden administration hopes to strengthen cooperation with Taiwan in terms of security guarantees and economic policies.

According to the report, the National Defense Authorization Act on the national defense budget for the 2023 fiscal year (from October 2022 to September 2023) reviewed by the U.S. Congress records that government officials will be sent to Taiwan. Learn Chinese in one year, and work in Taiwan's administrative agency or Legislative Yuan in the second year. This plan of sending officials to Taiwan will be implemented every year.

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In an interview with Nikkei, Richard Pearson, director of the Western Pacific Fellowship Project, an NPO organization that handles the residency program, said in an interview that if the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act is passed before the end of the year, the plan will start early next year. We are recruiting people who want to go to Taiwan, and we will start dispatching in September next year.

According to the report, the number of U.S. government officials stationed in Taiwan is expected to be 10 a year. Pearson said that they will start recruiting from ministries related to economy and security. U.S. military attachés are also recruited, and it is reported that they cannot be recruited from intelligence agencies.

He also said that from the end of November to the beginning of December, he had negotiated the dispatch plan with relevant people in Taiwan's administrative authorities and the Legislative Yuan.

Generally speaking, the reason why the United States began to send officials to Taiwan is mainly because of the long-term confrontation between the United States and China over the Taiwan issue. Facilitate cooperation between Taiwan and the United States.

In view of the successive visits of members of the US Senate and House of Representatives to Taiwan, the US government will formulate policies to increase exchanges between the US and Taiwan authorities to support Taiwan.

According to the report, some people in the US Congress said that it is rare for the US government to send officials to Taiwan for a long time, and the current plans to station in Taiwan generally last only a few months.