Pompeo lays ‘landmines’ in US-China relations, says Australian Kevin Rudd

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s latest move in Taiwan could upend a major foundation that underpins US-China relations – further complicating a strained bilateral relationship just before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, the former said. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

“What Pompeo is doing is laying a whole host of landmines for the new Biden administration … salting the earth in US-China relations in general, and laying mines in Taiwan in particular,” Rudd told Monday. CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia”.

Over the weekend, Pompeo announced the lifting of all “self-imposed restrictions” on the United States’ relationship with Taiwan – a democratic, self-governing island that China claims as its own territory.

Pompeo said in a statement on Saturday that the United States had unilaterally limited contact between its officials and their Taiwanese counterparts for several decades “in an effort to appease the Communist regime in Beijing.” He then said that all of these restrictions were “no more”.

The move could mark the end of the “one China policy,” said Rudd, who is now president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

One China Policy is the premise that the United States and the international community recognize that there is only one Chinese government – under the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

“This has been the mainstay of strategic stability for the past 40 years or so,” said the former Australian leader.

“I think we have to understand that we are heading towards the end of the ‘one China policy’. And what does this mean for the markets? What does it mean for the international community “This signifies a new period of real strategic instability given that this is a fundamental element of the faith in Beijing,” he added.

The Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, but Beijing sees the island’s reunification with the mainland as a possibility, and Taiwan therefore has no right to participate in its own international diplomacy.

China has reportedly criticized the US decision to lift restrictions on Taiwan, while the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry thanked Pompeo on Twitter.

Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said China was opposed to Pompeo’s decision and would resolutely fight attempts to sabotage its interests, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Pompeo’s removal of US restrictions on contacts with Taiwan is a “big thing,” the news agency reported.

“The relations between Taiwan and the United States have been elevated to the rank of a global partnership. The Foreign Ministry will not let its guard down and hopes to continue to stimulate the development of relations between Taiwan and the United States,” Wu reportedly said. .

Rudd said Pompeo might be motivated to harden the US stance on China now so he can attack Biden as “having gone soft” on China if the new administration make policy changes. Some media reports have named Pompeo as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

Nonetheless, the Biden administration is unlikely to move away from the “strategic ambiguity” that has long been US foreign policy in Taiwan, Rudd said.

The ambiguity helps maintain “sufficient doubt” that the United States would immediately defend Taiwan if the island embrace any “reckless policy” such as a unilateral declaration of independence from China, Rudd explained.

The other dimension of the US position is to challenge any assumption by Beijing that Washington will not react if the continent takes military action on Taiwan, Rudd added.

“It’s the strategic ambiguity so far. I don’t see it as a change.”