President Joe Biden offered no words of congratulations or support to Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te following his election victory on Saturday, telling reporters simply that America does “not support independence.”
Lai, of the anti-communist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), defeated two leftist rivals on Saturday to hand his party an unprecedented third term in power. Lai is currently the vice president of the country and will succeed current DPP President Tsai Ing-wen.
Taiwan is a sovereign nation with its own government and civil institutions wholly independent of the Chinese Communist Party. Despite this reality, Beijing insists that Taiwan is a province of China and its government is a rogue “separatist” organization. The Chinese government forces countries to choose between recognition of Taiwan’s sovereignty or diplomatic ties with China, so most of the world’s nations do not maintain formal ties with Taiwan. At press time, only 12 countries in the world recognize Taiwanese sovereignty, following Nauru’s abandonment of Taipei this weekend in the aftermath of Lai’s election. America is not one of the 12; former President Jimmy Carter abandoned Taiwan to forge ties with the Communist Party in 1979.
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