Tsai’s Transit to the World Causes Disturbing Relations between the United States and the Macaulay Islands: First Lawmaker in 25 Years from Taiwan
The President of Taiwan declared that Taiwan has the right to be connected with the world, just a day after she departed for a diplomatic mission to Central American and the United States.
Tsai departed Taiwan on Wednesday for a 10-day trip in which she will make stopovers in New York City and Los Angeles on either side of official visits to Guatemala and Belize.
“External pressure will not hinder our determination to go to the world. Before departing from Taipei, we will not yield nor provoke, we are calm and confident.
There are reports that she could meet Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the US House of Commons, on one of her unofficial stops in the US.
China has not specified how it intends to retaliate, but last summer, after former speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, Beijing staged unprecedented military drills around the island and cut off dialogue with the U.S. across a range of policy topics, including environmental dialogue and cooperation on cracking down on fentanyl trafficking.
It also took aim at the US as Tsai was en route, with the Foreign Ministry calling on Washington to stop committing “dangerous acts that underline the political foundation of the two countries’ relations.”
Under the “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China, but has never officially recognized Beijing’s claim to the island of 23 million.
China has been ramping up military, diplomatic and economic pressure on the island in order to win over the allies of Taiwan.
Washington believes there is “absolutely no reason” for Beijing to use Tsai’s transit as an excuse to carry out “aggressive or coercive activities” aimed at Taiwan, a US senior administration official told reporters, though privately there are concerns among some US officials about how Beijing may react.
The first lawmaker in 25 years from Nancy Pelosi’s rank visited the island last August and Beijing retaliated by firing missiles and launching military patrols.
Despite the fact that legislators make their own decisions on foreign activities, the visit caused strain on US-China relations.
An expected visit from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing last month – part of a bid from both sides to stabilize the deteriorating relationship – was scrapped after a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down over the US.
US officials have engaged in multiple communications with Chinese officials in Washington and Beijing over the past several weeks to provide them with information about the past US transits of Taiwan’s presidents, a senior administration official told reporters last week.
In previous transits, President Tsai has met with state and local officials. She had public appearances, and she attended engagements with the Taiwanese diaspora,” the official said. In the past, the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Institute in Taiwan welcomed the President when he traveled to Taiwan.
Only 13 countries now have official relations with Taiwan, with many countries in the Pacific and Central America changing their minds in recent years.
During her trip to Taipei last year, Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the visit was intended to make it “unequivocally clear” the US would “not abandon” the democratically governed island.
Tsai’s dates in the U.S. align with a trip to China by former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeoh, who is currently touring the mainland for the first time, on a trip billed as a cultural and academic exchange. The timing of Ma’s trip was not planned to coincide with Tsai’s, but it has acted as a political counterbalance to her tours in the US.
“People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese people,” Ma told reporters this week, using wording to denote Chinese ethnicity, not nationality.
Beijing, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and opposes interactions between Taiwan and other state officials, has already signaled its unhappiness.
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“It feels like everybody realizes we got really close to something really bad. We need to be more cautious,” says Shelley Rigger, a Taiwan expert and professor of Asian studies at Davidson College.
These stops are not new, however. Tsai has visited the U.S. nearly every year as president (with a three-year pause during the global coronavirus pandemic), despite Beijing’s efforts to limit Taiwan’s space on the international stage.