Mike Pompeo: US should immediately recognize Taiwan as ‘free and sovereign country’

The U.S. should immediately "do the right and obvious thing" and recognize Taiwan as a "free and sovereign country," former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote Thursday night in a series of Twitter messages.

Pompeo’s comments came as he visited Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei – and as war continued to rage in Ukraine late Thursday into Friday, with a fire at a nuclear power plant bringing a potentially frightening new scenario into play, although the fire was later reported to be extinguished.

A possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan has loomed as a possibility in the wake of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, with some foreign-affairs experts arguing U.S. adversaries may be eager to test how willing and able the Biden administration is to respond to acts of aggression.

But Pompeo warned that Taiwan must not suffer an attack similar to that in Ukraine.