Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen arrived in New York on Wednesday on a delicate stopover in the United States, vowing not to let outside pressure stop the island from engaging with the world after that China would threaten retaliation if he met with the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy.
China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as Chinese territory, has repeatedly warned US leaders against meeting Tsai, who is on her first stop in the United States since 2019, seeing it as a show of support for the desire for the island to be seen as an independent country.
China staged major war games around Taiwan in August when then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei. The Taiwanese military says it is on the lookout for any Chinese movement when Tsai is abroad.
Tsai is heading to Guatemala and Belize, two of the few countries that diplomatically recognize Taiwan. He will remain in New York until Saturday and will also visit Los Angeles upon his return from Central America. It is expected that he will meet McCarthy in California, although it is not officially confirmed.
“External pressure will not hinder our determination to go to the world,” Tsai said before leaving at Taiwan’s main international airport, Taoyuan.
“We are calm and confident, we will not give in or provoke. Taiwan will firmly walk the path of freedom and democracy and go further into the world. Even if this road is hard, Taiwan is not alone,” Tsai said.
Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the United States confirmed Tsai’s arrival in New York on Wednesday afternoon, saying none of her events were open to the press or the public during her stopover there. Videos showed her being greeted in the city by flag-waving supporters.
Taiwan has gradually lost official recognition from more countries as they have turned to Beijing. Honduras switched allegiance on Sunday, leaving only 13 countries with formal ties to Taiwan. Beijing claims that Taiwan belongs to “one China” and that, as a Chinese province, it has no right to establish ties between states. Taiwan denies it.
Taiwan is China’s most sensitive territorial issue and a major bone of contention with Washington, which, like most countries, maintains only unofficial ties with Taipei. But the US government is required by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself and facilitate unofficial stopovers.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Zhu Fenglian said in Beijing that if Tsai met with McCarthy, China “would definitely take steps to resolutely counterattack.”
Xu Xueyuan, charge d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in Washington, told reporters that such a meeting “could lead to another serious confrontation in the China-US relationship.”
“We have made solemn representations to the US side on many occasions and have clearly told them that all consequences must be borne by the US side,” he said.
MEETINGS AND BANQUET
The US transit is Tsai’s seventh since taking office in 2016 and comes amid concerns in the US and other countries that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could embolden China to move against Taiwan.
A meeting with McCarthy would be the first between a Taiwanese leader and a speaker of the US House of Representatives on US soil, though it is seen as a potentially less provocative alternative to McCarthy visiting Taiwan, something he has said he hopes to do.
Two sources told Reuters that as many as 20 or more US lawmakers planned to join McCarthy for his meeting with Tsai, initially scheduled for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library near Los Angeles. The library has not yet confirmed the meeting.
Two other sources said Tsai would attend a banquet with Taiwanese Americans and Taiwanese abroad in New York, as well as an event on Thursday with the Hudson Institute, a think tank to which the Taiwan government is a major donor, according to their annual reports.
Senior US officials said Tsai would meet with Laura Rosenberger, president at the Washington branch of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a US government-run non-profit organization that has unofficial relations with Taiwan.
Rosenberger, who took office last week, was previously a senior official for China and Taiwan on President Joe Biden’s National Security Council.
Tsai’s transit comes as US relations with China are at what some analysts consider their worst since Washington normalized ties with Beijing in 1979 and changed Taipei’s diplomatic recognition.
White House Homeland Security spokesman John Kirby urged China not to use a “normal” scale as a pretext to increase its aggressive activity against Taiwan.
“We are aware that things are tense right now” between the United States and China, Kirby said, but urged Beijing to keep the lines of communication open.
Kirby said Washington still wanted to reschedule a trip to Beijing for Secretary of State Antony Blinken that was postponed last month when a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down by a US fighter.
A senior US administration official told reporters that Beijing had stepped up military, economic and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan, but that Washington would not alter its “long-standing practice” of facilitating transit through the United States.