US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, a pro-China diplomat with little sympathy for Taiwan, has resigned and will return to academia.
He is to be replaced by William Burns, a Middle East expert who is currently undersecretary for political affairs and the department’s third-ranking official.
The move is unlikely to have an immediate impact on US-Taiwan relations at a time when Washington is preoccupied with developments in the Arab world.
Announcing Steinberg’s departure on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said: “Jim has been particularly instrumental in shaping our renewed engagement in the Asia-Pacific.”
“From managing our expanding relationship with China, to reaffirming our historic alliance with Japan, to addressing challenges on the Korean Peninsula, Jim has been at the center of shaping our efforts,” she said.
Clinton said Steinberg had been a “fixture” at meetings with the National Security Council (NSC) and frequently represented the US State Department at the White House.
Insiders said Steinberg has been at least partly responsible for US President Barack Obama’s decision to put Taiwan’s request to buy advanced F-16 aircraft on the backburner. He is said to have argued in private that F-16 sales to Taiwan would not result in enough benefits to justify upsetting Beijing.
US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers said US decisions regarding Taiwan were made collectively through an interagency process, coordinated by the NSC.
“That said, Steinberg did have the power to say no. It was a power he exercised reflexively when it came to Taiwan,” he said.
“I believe his actions spoke volumes for his view of Taiwan and the issues he believed it created for the US-China relationship. We can only hope that his successor takes a more balanced view of American interests on Taiwan and injects some badly needed ambition into our goals for US-Taiwan relations,” he said.
“I’m hopeful that a reassessment of our Taiwan policy will accompany the change,” said Walter Lohman, director of Asian studies at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.
“US-Taiwan relations right now are going nowhere. Steinberg was a well-known advocate for closer relations with China and I think that tendency was undermining movement in US-Taiwan relations,” Lohman said.
Steinberg is leaving the State Department to become dean of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in New York State. Prior to serving as deputy secretary of state, he was dean of the University of Texas’ Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.
An article on the New York Times Web site said Steinberg’s departure had been rumored for some time and that he “never became close to Mrs Clinton, despite having served as deputy national security adviser to her husband.”
Burns, the highest-ranking career diplomat in the department, has been deeply involved in policies concerning Iran and its nuclear program and the upheaval in the Arab world.
“He will bring incomparable depth and experience to the job, as well as important continuity,” Clinton said.
Steinberg will be remembered for his “strategic reassurance” policies toward Beijing.
Analyzing these policies in the Wall Street Journal, Kelley Currie, a nonresident fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, wrote: “There is a chance that the US is starting a quiet but important strategic shift away from a policy that incorporates an understood, if often inchoate, desire to see China become a more liberal and democratic society, toward an acceptance of China as a permanent authoritarian state.”
Gerrit van der Wees, editor of the Washington-based Taiwan Communique, said Steinberg was “too soft on China.”
“On Taiwan, Steinberg regrettably clung too much to old ‘one China’ policy mantras and was not able to engage the US in more creative thinking and action in support of Taiwan’s democracy and international space. He also was overly cautious on US arms sales to Taiwan,” he said.
What happens next, Van der Wees told the Taipei Times, depends on how responsibilities are shifted within the State Department.
Van der Wees expects US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell to take a more prominent role, “which is a good thing, because he has an excellent grasp of the policies needed to balance out China’s rise and retain US influence in East Asia.”
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS