WASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers proposed matching bills in the Senate and House of Representatives on Thursday that would require the United States to negotiate the renaming of Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington as the “Taiwan Representative Office,” a move certain to rankle the Chinese communist regime. It is currently called the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), using the name of the island’s capital city. Should the measures become law, any change in the office’s name could provide cover to smaller countries to take similar steps to boost engagement with Taiwan. It would also be certain to create a new rift in U.S.–China relations, already at their lowest point in decades as Washington seeks to push back against what it sees as Beijing’s growing economic and military coercion. The United States, like most countries, does not have official ties with democratically governed Taiwan, but is its …
RSS Feed | The Epoch Times