Matt Pottinger will meet with President Tsai Ing-wen and other senior officials to discuss regional security issues…reports Asian Lite News
Former US Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger is leading a Washington-based think tank to Taiwan, where he will meet with President Tsai Ing-wen and other senior officials to discuss regional security issues, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced, according to Focus Taiwan.
Pottinger, chairman of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD) China Programme, will also meet with National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Szu-chien and Deputy Foreign Minister Roy Lee during their visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press statement. Pottinger’s group will also visit the Ministry of National Defence, Coast Guard Administration, and Ministry of Digital Affairs to exchange perspectives on national security and strategy, digital resilience, and information security concerns, according to MOFA, as reported by Focus Taiwan.
Focus Taiwan is a part of the Central News Agency (CNA), the national news agency of the Republic of China (ROC).
Other delegation members include FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz and Jacob Nagel, a senior fellow at FDD who previously served as head of Israel’s National Security Council and as acting national security advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among other positions, according to Focus Taiwan.
Pottinger worked at the White House for four years in senior positions on the National Security Council staff, notably as deputy national security advisor from 2019 to 2021. He was responsible for coordinating the whole scope of US national security policy in that capacity.
In his address at the Shangri-La Security Summit in Singapore, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin had warned that the conflict in Taiwan Strait would be a devastating one, criticising China for its actions in the region.
“Our policy is constant and firm. It has held true across U.S. administrations. And we will continue to categorically oppose unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. I’d also highlight that conflict is neither imminent or inevitable. Deterrence is strong today–and it’s our job to keep it that way,” Austin said at the Shangri-La Security Summit in Singapore.
“You know, the whole world has a stake in maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait–the whole world. The security of commercial shipping lanes and global supply chains depends on it. And so does freedom of navigation world-wide.
But make no mistake: conflict in the Taiwan Strait would be devastating,” he said in his remarks ‘A Shared Vision for the Indo-Pacific’ in Singapore. (ANI)
