John Hennessey-Niland’s late March visit to Taiwan was the first by an American ambassador in 42 years. It came on the heels of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s meeting with top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in Anchorage, Alaska. That meeting was characterised by palpable tension and a vitriolic diatribe against the United States for its ostensible international bullying and supposed white supremacist ideology. Of course, scarcely a week after the Anchorage summit, the People’s Liberation Army staged its largest incursion of Taiwanese airspace since China began to conduct daily airspace violations in 2020. The PLA Air Force effectively deployed a strike package — four H-6K strategic bombers that specialise in anti-surface warfare at extreme range, and ten J-16 fighters — and flew over the Bashi Channel, a critical maritime link between U.S.-affiliated Taiwan and the U.S.-allied Philippines. This exercise came just after Taiwan suspended training missions after two fighter jet crashes earlier that week.
Ambassador Hennessey-Niland is the U.S.’ official representative in Palau, a small Pacific republic of 17,000 people. Palau, along with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, are “Freely Associated States.” While they administer their internal affairs, the U.S. is charged with their defense, although it may not declare war on their behalf. In return, the U.S. receives functionally unimpeded military access to these territories.
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