Taiwan President Lai Ching-te will visit Hawaii and the US territory of Guam during an upcoming trip to the Pacific, prompting condemnations from China, which could respond by staging a fresh round of military drills near the island democracy. <\/p>\n
While on US soil, Lai is expected to \u201cmeet with old friends\u201d and participate in closed-door discussions with think tanks, according to Taiwan\u2019s official Central News Agency. <\/p>\n
Taiwanese leaders have often used visits to diplomatic allies to make unofficial stopovers in the United States, which has remained Taiwan\u2019s most important backer and arms supplier despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations. <\/p>\n
The Taiwanese president\u2019s upcoming trip has already drawn the ire of Beijing. A Chinese defense ministry spokesman told a press briefing on Thursday that the military would \u201cresolutely crush any separatist attempt seeking Taiwan independence\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cPolitical manipulation and provocation to seek \u2018Taiwan independence\u2019 are doomed to fail and can never stop the historical trend of China\u2019s reunification,\u201d spokesman Wu Qian added. <\/p>\n
The Taiwan Affairs Office, a Chinese government agency responsible for cross-strait affairs, also labeled Lai\u2019s visit as \u201ca provocative act,\u201d and called on the United States to \u201cstop sending wrong signals to Taiwan\u2019s independence forces.\u201d <\/p>\n
China\u2019s ruling Communist party claims Taiwan as a part of its territory, despite having never controlled it, and has repeatedly ruled out the use of force to bring it under control. The Taiwanese government, meanwhile, emphasizes that it is a sovereign government and that the future of Taiwan can only be decided by its population of 23.5 million. <\/p>\n
Karen Kuo, a spokeswoman from Taiwan\u2019s presidential office, said Lai\u2019s official visit to the three diplomatic allies is aimed at bolstering friendly relations with like-minded democracies, adding that maintaining regional peace and stability is the joint responsibility of both sides of the Taiwan Strait. <\/p>\n
Lai\u2019s visit to Hawaii comes as the leadership of the US, its most important protector, is in a state of transition with observers \u2013 and Taiwan \u2013 closely watching how the return of Donald Trump to the White House might impact relations with China. <\/p>\n
Beijing openly loathes Lai and reacted with fury to his election earlier this year. <\/p>\n
\u201c[China hopes to] create an incident during the transition period in the United States to highlight its disregard to the Biden administration, and create pressure on the incoming Trump team by drawing a red line,\u201d the official said. <\/p>\n
Since the beginning of this year, Beijing has held two rounds of war games near Taiwan \u2013 one in May and another in October \u2013 both labelled as part of its \u201cJoint Sword 2024\u201d exercises. <\/p>\n
In a statement on Wednesday, Taiwan\u2019s defense ministry said any deliberate attempt to create tension in the Taiwan Strait would undermine peace and stability, which is not \u201cthe proper behavior of a responsible modern country.\u201d <\/p>\n
In April last year, Beijing launched three days of military drills in response to an unofficial visit to California by Lai\u2019s predecessor Tsai Ing-wen. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te will visit Hawaii and the US territory of Guam during an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}