Taiwan’s president will visit allies in the Pacific, but there is no information on US transits

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te will start a trip at the end of the month to visit Taiwan’s three surviving diplomatic allies in the Pacific, his office said on Friday. The government would not say where in the United States the trip would go, though.

When Taiwanese presidents go to allied countries, they often make official stop-overs in the US, which is Taiwan’s biggest foreign ally and arms supplier. This makes Beijing very angry.

In the past two years, China has held military drills around Taiwan twice, after presidents or vice presidents stopped in the United States. Beijing claims Taiwan as its own land.

Taipei’s presidents often meet with friendly politicians and give talks during these stops. Last week, Reuters said that Lai was going to stop in Hawaii and maybe the U.S. possession of Guam on his way to the Pacific.

At a news conference, reporters kept asking Deputy Taiwan Foreign Minister Tien Chung-kwang about the stopovers. He said they were still being planned and would be released at a “appropriate time.”

“But there is a principle, which is that they are handled with safety, dignity, convenience and comfort” with that in mind.
As Lai’s first trip outside of Taiwan since taking office in May, China will do everything it can to stop the trip, but Taiwan won’t give up, he said.

“We’re not going to dance to their beat.” We’ll follow through on our plans and do what we need to do.

Two people who know what’s going on said that information about the U.S. part of the trip probably wouldn’t come out until a day or two before Lai left.

Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, didn’t directly talk about Lai’s possible passage through the US when he spoke in Beijing. Instead, he said that the “one-China principle” was what everyone in the world agreed on.

“PARTNER FOR A LONG TIME”

There are official diplomatic links between Taiwan and 12 countries, and three of them are in the Pacific: Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu. Lai will visit all of these countries starting on November 30, according to his office.

His public schedule doesn’t show him getting to the Marshall Islands until the following week, on December 3. It doesn’t say where he will be in the meantime.

The visits to Pacific Island nations are also important because China is competing with the US for power in that area and has been slowly cutting links with Taiwan in the area’s countries that still have them. In January, the small country of Nauru changed its ties to Beijing again.

On Friday, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu all said in comments that they were glad Lai was visiting.

As a long-time partner and close friend of the Marshall Islands, we are excited to welcome President Lai with open arms, President Hilda Heine’s office wrote on Facebook.

In the past five years, China has increased its military actions around Taiwan. Last month, it held more war games that it said were a warning against “separatist acts.”

Beijing says Taiwan is its own country, but Taiwan’s government says it can work with other countries and allow its leaders to travel to other countries.

After vice president Lai returned from the US in August of last year, China held a day of military drills around Taiwan. Lai had only made stopovers in the US, but he gave talks on his way to and from Paraguay.

In April of last year, China also held war games around Taiwan because it didn’t like that Taiwan’s president at the time, Tsai Ing-wen, was visiting the U.S. and meeting with Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy. In 2017 and 2019, Tsai stopped in Hawaii on her way to see friends in the Pacific.