WASHINGTON — The White House will send an unofficial delegation to Taiwan this weekend for the inauguration of the island's democratically elected president, the Biden administration announced Wednesday, in a move that is certain to upset China but unlikely to draw excessive responses from Beijing as the two countries try to stabilize relations.
A senior White House official said the move is in line with longstanding U.S. practice to send the delegation — which includes two former senior officials and a scholar — to the inauguration ceremony Monday. Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party will take office, succeeding Tsai Ing-wen of the same party.
Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of Chinese territory and vows to seize the island by force if necessary to achieve unification, sees Lai as a supporter of Taiwan's independence and has long opposed any official contact between Washington and Taipei.
''In what ways the U.S. deals with the new Taiwan authorities on May 20 and afterwards will affect (the) cross-Strait situation and also the China-U.S. relations in the future,'' Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday before the announcement, referring to the Taiwan Strait.
''So we urge the U.S. side to act on President Biden's commitment of not supporting Taiwan independence,'' he said.
The U.S. delegation will be in Taipei ''to represent the American people," the White House official told reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the trip before it was announced. The official called Taiwan ''a model for democracy not only in the region but also globally."
Despite an absence of formal relations with Taiwan, the U.S. is the island's strongest ally and is obligated under a 1979 law to help Taiwan protect itself from invasion.
It's unclear how Beijing would respond to an unofficial U.S. delegation at the Taiwanese inauguration, but "Beijing will be the provocateur should it choose to respond with additional military pressure or coercion,'' the U.S. official said, adding that the administration is not predicting how China would respond.