US President Joe Biden’s administration is working to reduce the possibility of hostility from China regarding Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s upcoming visit to the US.
President Tsai will stop in California and New York later this month before starting an official mission to Central America. An unnamed official said the Biden administration had told Beijing that past Taiwanese presidents routinely stopped in the US on their way to other countries, including Tsai. Tsai made six stopover visits to the US between 2016 and 2019.
The official said China should not use Tsai’s stay in the US as an excuse to take aggressive action against Taiwan.
China respondedthe visit of the then speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan last August launched a massive multi-day military exercise in the Taiwan Strait. The drills include firing ballistic missiles in the waters separating Taiwan from the mainland.
Beijing regards the democratically-governed island as part of its territory, even though Taiwan has been self-ruled since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces were driven from mainland China by Mao Zedong’s Communist forces. China has vowed to bring the island back under its control by all means necessary, including a military takeover.
The US changed diplomatic recognition of China from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. But the US still provides Taiwan with military equipment for self-defense under the Taiwan Relations Act.
News media last month said Tsai would address the Ronald Reagan Presidential Center near Los Angeles ahead of her scheduled trip to Central America. Media also reported that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet President Tsai during his US stopover. The Republican party figure, who represents a district in California, had previously expressed interest in visiting Taiwan.
Source: VOA Indonesia