Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-te, a top candidate for president, will stop in the US next month en route to South America, plans that risk roiling tensions with China months before the election.
Lai will transit the US on his way to Paraguay, where he’ll attend the presidential inauguration of Santiago Peña, the Foreign Ministry in Taipei said Monday, without providing further details about the stopover.
It is “usual practice” for a Taiwanese official to transit through the US, Vice Foreign Minister Alexander Yui said Monday at a press briefing in Taipei. “We’ll follow the usual practice and handle it with the principles of comfort, convenience, safety and dignity,” he added.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Monday at a regular press briefing in Beijing that her nation had filed a diplomatic complaint with the US about the plans for Lai’s stopover.
“China opposes any form of official interactions between the US and Taiwan,” she said. “We stand rock firm against the Taiwan independence forces making any visit to the US.”
China protests all official engagement with the government in Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own. A senior Biden administration official said Lai’s transit wouldn’t go beyond precedent and would be low key, private and unofficial.
Taiwan will hold presidential elections in January and leading contenders usually visit the US before voters cast their ballots. Hou Yu-ih, the opposition Kuomintang’s candidate, is expected to transit through the US sometime in the early autumn, the official said.
Military Drills
Lai’s visit is likely to anger Beijing. After President Tsai Ing-wen met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during a similar transit in the US in April, the People’s Liberation Army held major military drills around the democracy of some 23 million people.
The PLA also held exercises in August 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei — that military activity included sending missiles over Taiwan. The US criticized China’s maneuvers, and President Joe Biden has repeatedly pledged to protect Taiwan if it is invaded.
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Last week, PLA warplanes made their biggest incursion into sensitive areas around Taiwan in three months while Pena visited Taipei. Paraguay is the only South American country to officially recognize Taiwan as a nation, and Pena said during his visit that he’s “determined” to maintain the relationship. He’s set to be sworn into office on Aug. 15.
Lai has gone to the US twice in recent years. In 2020, he visited Washington, meeting with Senator Marco Rubio, a critic of China’s policies, and visiting officials at the National Security Council. He stopped in Los Angeles last year as part of a trip to Honduras, which later switched ties to Beijing.
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The DPP candidate has consistently led polls in Taiwan, while Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party and the KMT’s Hou jostle for second place.
China blames the ruling Democratic Progressive Party for damaging cross-tensions by frequently having officials meeting with figures from other nations. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has refused to interact with Tsai because she doesn’t accept Beijing’s stance there is just “one China.”
--With assistance from Rebecca Choong Wilkins.
(Updates with comment from US official.)
