As the delegation''s visit gets underway, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is in China for three days of talks on climate change. The former US secretary of state arrived in Shanghai on Wednesday, the same day that former Senator Chris Dodd landed in Taiwan. President Tsai Ing-wen appeared to allude to Kerry when receiving Dodd on Thursday.
Tsai Ing-wen
President
The Biden administration is actively working with the international community on the issue of climate change. Taiwan is committed to carbon reduction and developing green energy. I believe this is a key area in which we can cooperate over the long term.
Chang Kuo-cheng
International relations analyst
Dodd has come as a special envoy for Biden. What I said earlier about him coming with a message for Tsai, that is extremely plausible. John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate change affairs, went to Shanghai. He won’t be meeting Xi Jinping, as he’s not going to go to Beijing. And afterward, he’s going to Seoul. This means China is simply one stop on an itinerary.
An analyst points out that Kerry is an official presidential envoy, while Dodd is a confidant to the U.S. president with no official capacity. The two are in Shanghai and Taipei respectively for roughly the same amount of time. The analyst says their arrival shows the careful calculus of the Biden administration as it weighs its Indo-Pacific strategy.