Taiwan President Lai Ching-te will visit Taipei’s three remaining diplomatic allies in the Pacific on a trip starting at the end of the month, his office said on Friday, but the government declined to give details on U.S. transit stops.
Taiwanese presidents usually use visits to allied countries to make what are officially stop-overs in the United States, Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier, which frequently anger Beijing.
On two occasions in the past two years China staged military drills around Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory, after presidential or vice-presidential stopovers in the United States.
On those stopovers, Taiwanese presidents often meet with friendly politicians and give speeches. Reuters reported last week that Lai was planning to stop off in Hawaii and maybe the U.S. territory of Guam while he was in the Pacific.
Asked repeatedly by reporters at a news conference for details on the stop overs, Deputy Taiwan Foreign Minister Tien Chung-kwang said they were in the planning stages and would be announced at an “appropriate time”.
“But there is a principle, which is that they are handled with safety, dignity, convenience and comfort” in mind, said Tien.
China will do all it can to stymie the trip – Lai’s first abroad since being inaugurated in May – but Taiwan won’t be deterred, he added.
“We won’t dance to their tune. We will do what we have to do and what we plan.”
Two sources familiar with the situation said details of the U.S. part of the trip would likely only come a day or so before Lai departed.
Speaking in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian did not directly address the prospect of Lai transitting the United States, but said the “one-China principle” was the general consensus of the international community.
‘LONG TERM PARTNER’
Of the 12 countries which maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, three are in the Pacific – Palau, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu – and Lai will go to all of them starting from Nov. 30, his office said.
His official schedule has him then arriving in the Marshall Islands only in the following week, on Dec. 3, without saying where he would be in the intervening period.
The Pacific island nations visits are also important as China is competing for influence with the United States there and has been gradually whittling away at the number of countries in the region who retain ties with Taiwan. In January, tiny Nauru switched relations back to Beijing.
Palau, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu all put out statements on Friday saying they welcomed Lai’s visit.
“As a long-term partner and good friend of the Marshall Islands, we look forward to the warmly receiving President Lai,” the office of President Hilda Heine said on its Facebook page.
China has ramped up its military activities around Taiwan in the past five years, including holding another round of war games last month it said were a warning to “separatist acts”.
Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims and says it has a right to engage with other countries and for its leaders to make foreign trips.
In August of last year, China held a day of military drills around Taiwan after then-vice president Lai returned from the United States, where he officially made only stopovers but gave speeches on his way to and from Paraguay.
In April of last year, China also held war games around Taiwan in anger at a U.S. trip by then-president Tsai Ing-wen, who met then-U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles. In 2017 and 2019, Tsai stopped in Hawaii during her visits to Pacific allies.
