7 members of Congress jointly called for the US Secretary of State to visit Taiwan | Taiwan News

Taipei (Taiwan News) – Seven members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter on Thursday (June 15) calling on Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to stop in Taiwan during his visit to China.

Blinken is scheduled to travel to Beijing and London from June 16 to 21, according to the State Department. His trip to China was originally scheduled for February but was postponed due to the Chinese spy balloon incident.

On Thursday, seven U.S. House representatives, led by Tom Tiffany, wrote a letter calling for Blinken to make a stop in Taiwan as part of his itinerary. They argued that the Taiwan trip met the intent of the Taiwan Travel Act, which makes it U.S. policy to encourage senior White House officials to travel to and meet with their Taiwanese counterparts.

That would give Blinken the opportunity to “publicly address widely reported concerns about delays in the delivery of U.S. weapons systems to Taiwan,” they said. Some of those sales, approved as far back as 2019, are “vital to Taiwan’s defense capabilities,” the congressman said.

They concluded by saying that a trip to Taiwan would send a message that the United States “doesn’t need permission from the Chinese Communist Party to meet with our friends and allies in Taiwan or anywhere else.”

In addition to Tiffany, six other Republican House representatives also signed the letter.