A senior Tokyo-based US diplomat who has been critical of Beijing’s military operations in the Indo-Pacific region will soon take over as director of the de facto US embassy to Taiwan.
The appointment follows a general election on the self-ruled island in January that has heightened cross-strait tensions.
Raymond Greene, who has served as deputy chief of mission in Washington’s Tokyo embassy since July 2021, will succeed Sandra Oudkirk as director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Taipei office this summer, AIT said on Wednesday.
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The career foreign service officer and diplomat has held a previous post at AIT, which is funded by the US State Department and meant to manage Washington’s unofficial relationship with the island. He served as AIT’s deputy director in Taipei for about three years before his most recent post in Tokyo.
Greene was also a diplomat in China, serving as consul general in Chengdu for nearly three years, a stint that ended in 2017.
However, he has been more critical of China in recent years, using the occasion of a meeting between US, Filipino and Japanese officials in Tokyo in 2022 to condemn Beijing’s “increasingly hostile maritime actions”.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has worked to upgrade that trilateral relationship. Just last month, it hosted leaders from the other two countries in Washington, and convened the first US-Japan-Philippines summit.
That move prompted an outcry from Beijing, which accused the three of causing “confrontation in the region”.
In a social media post earlier this year, Greene said he was pleased to host Deputy US Secretary of State Kurt Campbell in Tokyo for meetings that laid the groundwork for the trilateral meetings in Washington.
He called the discussions in Washington “yet another milestone in our joint efforts to realise a free and open Indo-Pacific and a global rules-based order”.
Beijing vows to reunify Taiwan with the mainland, by force if necessary. Like most other Western countries, the US does not recognise Taiwan as an independent country, although Washington is committed by its Taiwan Relations Act to support the self-ruled island’s defence capability.
Last week, mainland China’s People’s Liberation Army launched military air-and-sea exercises around Taiwan, prompting an angry response from Washington and some of its allies.
The resumption of PLA drills came just days after the presidential inauguration of William Lai Ching-te from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Lai was elected in January.
The AIT, whose main office is in Taipei, also has offices in Taiwan’s port city of Kaohsiung and Washington.
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