The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), also known as Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), Taipei Representative Office (TRO) or Taipei Mission, is an alternative diplomatic institution serving as a de facto embassy or a consulate of the Republic of China to exercise the foreign affairs and consular services in specific countries which have established formal diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. The PRC denies the legitimacy of the ROC as a sovereign state and claims the ROC-controlled territories as an integral part of its territory. An exclusive mandate, namely One-China policy, requires that any country wishing to establish a diplomatic relationship with the PRC must first sever any formal relationship with the ROC. According to The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, "non-recognition of the Taiwanese government is a prerequisite for conducting formal diplomatic relations with the PRC—in effect forcing other governments to choose between Beijing and Taipei." As a result, these countries only allow the ROC to establish representative offices instead of a fully-fledged embassy or consulate for the purpose of conducting practical bilateral relations without granting full diplomatic recognition.
Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Guam (Chinese：駐關島臺北經濟文化辦事處) also known as the Representative Office in Guam of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, is a branch office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan) located in the U.S. territory of Guam. It functions at the level of a substantive consulate. The Consular district of this office includes Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. It temporarily suspended operations in 2017 but resumed its functions in 2020.
