Palau is one of just 12 countries that has official diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The country's president, Surangel Whipps Jr., has vowed to stick by Taiwan despite pressure from China. TaiwanPlus sat down with President Whipps in Palau’s former capital of Koror as he begins his second term in office.

China warned on Thursday that the Taiwan Democratic Progressive Party authorities' attempt to seek "Taiwan independence" will lead nowhere, as the so-called Foreign Minister of Taiwan Lin Chia-lung attended the inauguration ceremony of the president of Palau as a "presidential envoy."

The Biden administration is seeking to shore up ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific in its waning days in office by sending to Congress three key agreements that would cement relations with critical allies and partners in the region,

Members of a Taiwanese delegation who were in Palau to attend the inauguration of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr and sustained minor injuries in a car accident on Friday night have returned to Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

China has ramped up efforts to poach Taiwan’s Pacific Island allies. So far, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, and Nauru have switched recognition to Beijing over the past six years. In August, Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. said that China was pressuring him to break ties with Taiwan in exchange for Chinese tourists.

The so-called “compacts of free association” with Palau and the Marshall Islands ... them from Imperial Japan in World War II, but China has been working hard to win influence among them.

Donald Trump has already taken radical new stances on Greenland and the Panama Canal. What do security experts predict he'll do in the Pacific?