U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will soon visit Taiwan and meet with President Tsai Ing-wen, the self-ruled island's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, in a move provoking China and likely to intensify strains between the world's two major powers.
It would mark the first visit to Taiwan by a Cabinet-level U.S. official in six years. It would also be the highest-level visit by a U.S. Cabinet official since 1979, the year Washington switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"Taiwan has been a model of transparency and cooperation in global health during the COVID-19 pandemic and long before it," Azar said in a statement, announcing his plan to lead a delegation to the island in the coming days.
The secretary said he looks forward to conveying President Donald Trump's "support for Taiwan's global health leadership and underscoring our shared belief that free and democratic societies are the best model for protecting and promoting health."
Azar is also expected to meet with Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung, who heads Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center, according to the ministry.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said later Wednesday that the mainland government "firmly opposes official exchanges" between the United States and Taiwan, urging Washington to adhere to the "one-China" principle.
"Taiwan is the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. relations," Wang said. "The one-China principle is recognized by the international community. Any attempt to ignore, deny or challenge the one-China principle will end in failure."
No concrete date for Azar's visit has yet been announced, but U.S. media said the visit is believed to be scheduled for next week.
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, Taiwan's de facto mission in the United States, said in a statement that it looks forward to Azar's visit "further strengthening Taiwan-U.S. cooperation in areas of medical research, supply chain security, and global health."
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy under the previous administration of President Barack Obama visited Taiwan in 2014 and held talks with then Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou. China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province awaiting reunification, at the time expressed displeasure at her visit.
Azar's planned trip comes as relations between the United States and China deteriorate to a level some experts liken to the emergence of a new Cold War.
The world's two largest economies are locked in disputes on the trade and technology fronts as well as over Hong Kong, the South China Sea, human rights and the response to coronavirus pandemic.
Maintaining unofficial ties and supplying the island with arms and military spare parts over the decades, the United States has sought closer ties with Taiwan in recent years.
In 2018, the Taiwan Travel Act was enacted under the Trump administration to promote exchanges of visits by high-level U.S. and Taiwanese officials. The administration has also sent naval ships through the Taiwan Strait.
The closer ties between the United States and Taiwan under independence-leaning Tsai have become a factor escalating tensions between Beijing and Washington.
At the World Health Organization, Taiwan has been excluded at China's insistence. Beijing opposes its inclusion as a violation of its "one-China" policy.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in May condemned Taiwan's exclusion from the World Health Assembly, the WHO's annual meeting, accusing China of exerting pressure on the U.N. health agency's leadership.
Democratic Taiwan and communist-led mainland China have been separately governed since they split amid a civil war in 1949.
