Nancy Pelosi's visit in August, the first by a House speaker in 25 years, prompted an unprecedented show of force by the People's Liberation Army, which fired missiles at Taiwan
According to the Financial Times, the US is sending its top China defense official to Taiwan – although it is unclear how Beijing will react given the softer tone it has adopted in its diplomacy with the US and allies recently.
China's deputy assistant defense secretary, Michael Chase, will visit "in the coming days," the newspaper said, citing four people familiar with the situation.
China appears to have reorganized its Taiwan strategy for next year's presidential election. Officials in Shanghai plan to make the trip soon, pending approval from the government in Taipei, in what would be the first such trip before the pandemic began.
Beijing vowed to resume imports of Taiwanese food after halting shipments in December.
Beijing opposes military ties between Washington and Taipei, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular news briefing on Friday, saying the US should "stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait."
China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, strongly opposes official visits to Taipei by governments with which it has diplomatic relations, often flying warplanes around the democratically-run island in a show of displeasure. Let's send
A visit by Nancy Pelosi in August, the first by a Speaker of the House in 25 years, prompted an unprecedented show of force by the People's Liberation Army, which fired missiles at Taiwan. In 2020, then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar led a delegation that was the highest-level visit by a US cabinet official since Washington severed ties with Taipei more than 40 years ago.
Still, it offered a muted response when the most recent senior Pentagon official, ex-deputy assistant defense secretary for East Asia Heino Klink, visited Taiwan in 2019.
Despite recent efforts to improve talks, relations between Washington and Beijing have deteriorated after the US shot down a balloon it said China was using for espionage. China says the plane was a civilian device collecting meteorological data when it was blown up.
On Thursday, China imposed fines and sanctions against Lockheed Martin Corp and a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies Corp for selling weapons to Taiwan.
The move is largely symbolic and came after the US sanctioned six Chinese firms after it said they were linked to a military-backed global balloon spying programme.
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