On BBC News website.
Pompeo: US to lift restrictions on contacts with Taiwan
The US is lifting long-standing restrictions on contacts between American and Taiwanese officials, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says.
The "self-imposed restrictions" were introduced decades ago to "appease" the mainland Chinese government, which lays claim to the island, the US state department said in a statement.
These rules are now "null and void".
The move is likely to anger China and increase tensions between Washington and Beijing.
It comes as the Trump administration enters its final days ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden as president on 20 January.
The Biden transition team have said the president-elect is committed to maintaining the previous US policy towards Taiwan.
Analysts say they will be unhappy with such a policy decision being made in the final days of the Trump administration, but that the move could be reversed easily by Mr Pompeo's successor Antony Blinken.
China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, but Taiwan's leaders argue that it is a sovereign state.
Relations between the two are frayed and there is a constant threat of a violent flare up that could drag in the US, an ally of Taiwan.
Done with an eye on creating a distraction for the post-20 Jan White House occupant or a final poke at Beijing? Or both?