US Federal Staff to Work Inside Taiwan’s Government Offices
Some United States federal employees will spend up to a year working inside Taiwan’s government offices under a new fellowship scheme announced on Wednesday, in a move designed to deepen ties between Washington and Taipei.
The Taiwan Fellowship Program will first put participants through up to a year of intensive Mandarin language training and area studies. On completing that stage, fellows are expected to work for up to a year in Taiwan’s parliamentary offices, ministries, other agencies or offices, or organisations outside the public sector, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said.
The institute, which acts as the de facto American embassy in Taipei, announced the scheme on Wednesday 11 November. A memorandum of understanding to put it into practice was signed the day before in Arlington, Virginia.
A two-year path from classroom to ministry
The programme has two stages, each lasting up to a year. The first is devoted to language and regional study; the second places fellows directly inside the institutions where Taiwan’s public affairs are handled.
The Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, is among the possible destinations, alongside ministries, government agencies and organisations outside the public sector. Participants could therefore spend as much as two years in Taiwan in total.
The memorandum was signed by Ingrid Larson, AIT’s managing director in Washington, and Alexander Tah-Ray Yui, Taiwan’s representative to the United States. The American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, known as TECRO, are the two organisations behind the agreement, and implementation will be coordinated with the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Why Washington is doing it now
The stated aims are to expand and strengthen the US-Taiwan partnership and to deepen American officials’ expertise on Taiwan. AIT said the scheme would build a group of federal professionals with language skills, cultural knowledge and “lasting working relationships across Taiwan”.
The fellowship is funded under Washington’s 2023 Taiwan Fellowship Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law on 23 December 2022 as part of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023.
The announcement did not say how many people would take part each year, when applications open, when the first fellows would arrive, or which host organisations would take them. Those details have yet to be published.
An unofficial relationship, made practical
The United States has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, having switched recognition to Beijing in 1979. Since then, AIT has handled the relationship in practice, and the new fellowship adds a working channel inside Taiwan’s own government to that long-standing arrangement.
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has stepped up military pressure around the island. US think tanks warned this month that China may be running unannounced drills to isolate Taiwan, while Taiwan closed an office in Papua New Guinea and halted gas purchases, blaming pressure from China.
Taiwan’s importance to the United States extends well beyond diplomacy. TSMC, the island’s chipmaking giant, posted record October revenue as AI chip demand surges, underlining how central Taiwan has become to the global technology supply chain.
For the fellows themselves, the scheme offers something no briefing paper can: a year of working inside another government’s offices, in its language, on its daily business. For Washington, it is a small but concrete investment in officials who understand Taiwan from the inside — at a moment when that understanding matters more than it has in decades.
