Former senator Bob Dole, acting as a foreign agent for the government of Taiwan, worked behind the scenes over the past six months to establish high-level contact between Taiwanese officials and president-elect Donald Trump's staff, an outreach effort that culminated last week in an unorthodox telephone call between Mr Trump and Taiwan's president.
Mr Dole, a lobbyist with the Washington law firm Alston & Bird, co-ordinated with Mr Trump's campaign and the transition team to set up a series of meetings between Mr Trump's advisers and officials in Taiwan, according to disclosure documents filed last week with the justice department. Mr Dole also assisted in successful efforts by Taiwan to include language favourable to it in the Republican Party platform, according to the documents.
Mr Dole's firm received $140,000 (€130,000) from May to October for the work, the forms said. The disclosures suggest that Mr Trump's decision to take a call from the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, was less a ham-handed diplomatic gaffe and more the result of a well-orchestrated plan by Taiwan to use the election of a new president to deepen its relationship with the United States – with an assist from a seasoned lobbyist well-versed in the machinery of Washington.
“They’re very optimistic,” Mr Dole said of the Taiwanese in an interview on Tuesday. “They see a new president, a Republican, and they’d like to develop a closer relationship.”
The United States's One China policy is nearly four decades old, Mr Dole said, referring to the policy established in 1979 that denies Taiwan official diplomatic recognition but maintains close contacts, promoting Taiwan's democracy and selling it advanced military equipment.
Diplomatic practice
The phone call between Mr Trump and Ms Tsai was a striking break from nearly four decades of diplomatic practice and threatened to precipitate a major rift with China, which admonished Mr Trump in a front-page editorial in the overseas edition of
People’s Daily
.
The disclosure documents were submitted before the call took place and made no mention of it. But Mr Dole (93), a former Senate majority leader from Kansas, said he had worked with transition officials to facilitate the conversation. "It's fair to say that we had some influence," he said. "When you represent a client and they make requests, you're supposed to respond."
Officials on Mr Trump’s transition team did not respond to requests for comment. The documents suggest that Mr Dole helped the government of Taiwan establish early access to Mr Trump’s inner circle during the campaign, when Mr Dole worked to involve Mr Trump’s aides in a US delegation to Taiwan and to facilitate a Taiwanese delegation to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. The effort has continued in the weeks since the election.
Mr Dole, who said he first took an interest in Taiwan as a senator when Congress was considering the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act that established the current policy, has lobbied for the Taiwanese government for nearly two decades.
In a letter in January, Mr Dole laid out the terms of his agreement to represent the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, Taiwan's unofficial embassy, including a $25,000 monthly retainer.
That letter and the document detailing Mr Dole’s work for the Taiwanese were filed at the justice department, which requires foreign agents to register and detail their efforts at influencing the US government.
Mixed messages
Mr Trump’s transition team has sent mixed messages about the call with Ms Tsai, whether it was meant as a mere gesture of goodwill or a provocation aimed at drawing Taiwan closer to the United States as a way of challenging China, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province.
Vice-president-elect Mike Pence suggested in the days after the call that Mr Trump had merely been affording a courtesy to another "democratically elected leader". But in a series of Twitter posts on Sunday, Mr Trump suggested a more confrontational motive, criticising China for unfair trade practices and aggressive military moves.
“Did China ask us if it was OK” to take such actions?, Trump asked rhetorically, appearing to counter suggestions that the United States must ask Beijing’s permission to communicate with Taiwan.
Several senior advisers to Mr Trump have long advocated more overt outreach efforts and stronger US support for Taiwan, arguing that it would help to counterbalance Beijing’s influence. - (New York Times News Service)