US sending highest official to Taiwan since 1979

The United States has said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will visit Taiwan in the coming days, in the highest-level visit by an American cabinet official since the break in formal diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei in 1979.

The visit will likely create new frictions between the U.S. and China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.

Taiwan is a key irritant in the troubled relationship between the world's two largest economies, who are also at odds over trade, Hong Kong, the South China Sea and China's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. maintains only unofficial ties with Taiwan in deference to Beijing, but is the island's most important ally and provider of defense equipment.

Azar would be the first US cabinet member to visit Taiwan in six years.

Azar's visit was facilitated by the 2018 passage of the Taiwan Travel Act that encouraged sending higher-level officials to Taiwan after decades during which such contacts were rare and freighted with safeguards to avoid roiling ties with Beijing.

China objects to all official contact between Taiwan and the U.S.

But its increasing diplomatic pressure, including poaching away several of its remaining diplomatic allies and excluding it from international gatherings including the World Health Assembly, are seen as increasing already considerable bipartisan sympathy for Taipei and prompting new measures to strengthen governmental and military ties.

Taiwan's strong performance in handling its COVID-19 outbreak has also won it plaudits while highlighting its exclusion from the World Health Organization and other U.N. bodies.