JOE Biden’s wife Jill will attend the King’s coronation on behalf of the US President.
Mr Biden said on Monday he would be unable to attend the May 6 event because of his schedule.
Joe Biden’s wife Jill will attend the King’s coronation on behalf of the US PresidentCredit: ReutersThe White House said the President told the King First Lady Jill would attend on behalf of the US.Credit: Getty
But in a statement, The White House said the President told The King First Lady Jill would attend on behalf of the US.
The statement said: “President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with King Charles III, underscoring the strength of the relationship between our countries and the friendship between our peoples.
“The President congratulated the King on his upcoming coronation and informed him that First Lady Jill Biden looks forward to attending on behalf of the United States.
“The President also conveyed his desire to meet with the King in the United Kingdom at a future date.”
The First Lady will be among a raft of world leaders and dignitaries descending on London for Charles’ crowning.
Events for the coronation will start on Saturday May 6 and continue over Sunday May 7 and Monday May 8, which has been declared a bank holiday.
The action packed weekend will see King Charles and newly titled Queen Camilla arrive at Westminster Abbey in The King’s Procession on Saturday morning.
This will be followed by the coronation service conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The service will “reflect the monarch’s role today and look towards the future, while being rooted in longstanding traditions and pageantry”.
After the service, the newly-crowned King and Queen will return to the Palace in a larger ceremonial parade known as the Coronation Procession.
This is expected to include thousands of troops, military bands and other members of the Royal Family.
After the procession the Royal Family are expected to appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
PM Narendra Modi and visiting Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck reviewed bilateral cooperation Tuesday and discussed issues of national interests in a meeting, amid renewed efforts by Bhutan to demarcate parts of its boundary with China and uncertainty over the Doklam tri-junction.
While asserting the government was closely following all developments that had a bearing on India’s national interests, and would take all necessary measures to safeguard those, foreign secretary Vinay Kwatra also said ties with Bhutan were based on shared values including mutual sensitivity to each other’s concerns. The government reiterated its earlier statements on Doklam that said tri-junctions had to be finalised in consultation with all concerned countries.
“I would say that India and Bhutan remain in close touch relating to our shared interests, including security. I would only reiterate earlier statements on this issue which very explicitly bring out our position on trijunction boundary points,” said Kwatra on the Doklam issue, while not denying that the boundary issue was discussed in the king’s meeting with Modi.
The visit by the king had been in the works for many weeks but it took place days after Bhutan PM Lotay Tshering raised eyebrows by saying that Bhutan would be able to demarcate parts of its boundaries with China in “a meeting or two’’ and that there was no major border problem with China. He also said that all 3 countries will have an equal say in resolving the Doklam trijunction dispute. Tshering had later said he hadn’t said anything new and that Bhutan’s position on Doklam remained the same as in the past.
India maintains that any attempt to determine the tri-junction must be in line with the 2012 agreement between India and China that the tri-junction boundary points between India, China and third countries “will be finalized in consultation with the concerned countries’’. India had accused Beijing of violating this agreement in 2017 when China started to construct a road in the Doklam area.
The meeting also saw Modi reiterating India’s continued and full support to the socio-economic development in Bhutan, said the foreign secretary.
President Tsai Ing-Wen is shoring up allies, but a meeting with Speaker Kevin McCarthy is drawing threats from Beijing
Josue Decavele/Getty Images
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen is in the midst of a 10-day trip to the Americas, with stops in Belize, Guatemala, and the US as the island faces an increasingly belligerent Beijing. Tsai’s trip underscores Taiwan’s vulnerable position as its international allies face a pressure campaign from the People’s Republic of China to switch diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the mainland.
Beijing has threatened conflict over Taiwan, which according to its “one China principle” is part of the mainland, to some extent for decades. The tension most recently reached a fever pitch when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August of last year. At the time, Beijing retaliated by sanctioning Pelosi and firing ballistic missiles toward Taiwan, as well as announcing it would extend planned military drills. Now, with Tsai headed to the Americas to shore up support for Taiwan, Beijing has threatened “resolute countermeasures” should Tsai meet with current Speaker Kevin McCarthy next week, as she’s tentatively planned to do.
Just as existential for Tsai, though, may be her scheduled visits to Belize and Guatemala, particularly given the fact Honduras, a former diplomatic partner, recently changed its allegiance to Beijing. Though the US is Taiwan’s most powerful friend and security partner, the US government walks a fine line where the island is concerned. Officially, the US recognizes the People’s Republic of China and respects what it calls the “one China policy,” but practices strategic ambiguity where the two are concerned.
Taiwan itself is in a difficult position, too, as its official number of diplomatic partners dwindles from 14 to 13. Tsai’s visit to Belize and Guatemala will reinforce those countries’ commercial, diplomatic, and military commitments to Taiwan. But China has a tactic of using its relative economic might as a cudgel, typically by persuading poorer nations into infrastructure and lending deals that later make those nations economically beholden to Beijing. Honduras’s decision to switch allegiance may have had an economic payoff for the Central American nation, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu alleged.
Five Central American and Caribbean nations have switched their diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing since Tsai took power, and it isn’t clear that diplomacy can stanch the bleeding. And in regard to Tsai’s US visit, Beijing has warned that it’s watching the situation closely should Tsai meet with US officials.
What Tsai’s Central American visit can do for Taiwan
Though Tsai will bookend her trip with stops in the US — she started off in New York and plans to visit McCarthy in his California district before heading back to Taiwan — her Central American stops are critical too, Kitsch Liao, assistant director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub told Vox in an interview.
Much of Taiwan’s national security is connected to the threat from China, which can be dealt with in two different ways — cross-strait relations or international diplomatic relations. “Cross-strait doesn’t work if China doesn’t want to play with you,” Liao said, and China is not particularly disposed to work with Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Therefore, international support and diplomatic engagement, whether with official partners like Belize and Guatemala or powerful security partners like the US, does play an important security and intermediary role for Taiwan.
From a purely military perspective, Taiwan’s allegiances aren’t terribly strategic, but Taiwan does have priorities other than defense, like trade. Taiwan has a strong trade relationship with Guatemala, and has invested millions in the Central American country’s agricultural, manufacturing and tech industries, and Taiwan’s ties with the Marshall Islands in the Pacific are crucial for its fishing industry.
Of course, there’s also the symbolic importance of having official diplomatic relationships — they give credence to Taiwan’s sovereignty, a threatening concept for Beijing. That’s why, since Tsai became president in 2016, Panama, Nicaragua, and El Salvador in Central America, Sao Tome and Principe and Burkina Faso in Africa, the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, and the Solomon Islands and Kiribati in Oceania, have all broken ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing, many citing economic concerns for the switch, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Honduras, the most recent country to shift its allegiance to China, has been dealing with economic insecurity, including $600 million the country reportedly owed to Taiwan. China has made a concerted effort to isolate Taiwan, relying on the economic coercion it practices elsewhere — providing loans or support for infrastructure projects, only to exert more influence or take over those projects when the recipients of its largesse can’t pay China back or complete the planned construction.
“I expect that to continue,” Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND corporation, said of China’s campaign to peel off Taiwan’s allies.
Another method of influence is the so-called “golden passport” programs in certain Caribbean nations, according to the research of Leland Lazarus, associate director of the national security policy program at Florida International University’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy. In a recent report, Lazarus found that some Caribbean nations’ citizenship programs for foreign investors see a large percentage of Chinese applicants, who then wield political influence in those countries. In St. Kitts and Nevis, a diplomatic partner of Taiwan, an estimated 60 percent of applicants to the citizenship program were from China.
Since Honduras’ defection, Taiwan’s three Latin American partners — Paraguay, Guatemala, and Belize — have all reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, touting shared democratic ideals. Guatemala and Belize both reaffirmed their position that Taiwan is a sovereign nation.
Of course, there is an argument that Taiwan should work on cultivating relationships with powerful security partners like the US, according Grossman. “Taiwan shouldn’t worry about the Hondurases of the world,” Grossman told Vox in an interview, but rather “focus on powers including Australia, Japan, even the Philippines,” nearby nations that could provide military support in the case of an attack by China, especially if for some reason the US weren’t in a position to or were unwilling to come to Taiwan’s aid.
“Time is not on Taiwan’s side here,” Grossman said.
