(Taipei) Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will take advantage of his first trip abroad to make a stopover in American territory, in Hawaii and on the island of Guam, his services indicated Thursday, provoking the anger of Beijing which denounces “separatist actions”.
Posted at 7:08 a.m.
Akio WANG and Joy CHIANG
Agence France-Presse
Sworn in in May, Mr. Lai will take off on Saturday for the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, the only Pacific islands among Taiwan’s 12 remaining allies.
But stops are planned in his program in Hawaii, where he will spend two nights, and in Guam.
No meeting with the authorities of the United States, Taipei’s main supporter, has been announced.
Mr. Lai, who promised to defend Taiwan’s democracy in the face of Chinese threats and whom Beijing describes as a “dangerous separatist”, on the other hand wants to see “old friends” and “members of think tanks”, said a source. from the presidential administration to AFP on condition of anonymity.
“We have always opposed official trade between the United States and Taiwan […] and any form of US approval and support of Taiwan’s pro-independence separatists,” Mao Ning, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said at a regular news conference.
In the past, other Taiwanese leaders have made stops on American soil during visits to countries in South America or the Pacific, generally provoking the ire of Beijing.
China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since 1949, but Beijing claims the island as an integral part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to take control of it.
“Secessionist attempts”
Taiwan lives under constant threat of Chinese invasion and has increased its military spending in recent years to strengthen its military capabilities.
The island has a defense industry, but relies heavily on arms sales from Washington, its largest supplier of arms and munitions.
« L’[armée] “China has the sacred mission of protecting national sovereignty and territorial integrity and will resolutely crush all secessionist attempts for Taiwan’s independence,” Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry, said at a conference press release Thursday.
Relations between Beijing and Taipei have been terrible since 2016 and the arrival as Taiwanese president of Tsai Ing-wen, then Lai Ching-te in 2024.
China has regularly accused them of wanting to widen the gap between the island and the continent. In response, Beijing notably strengthened its military activity around the territory.
Under this pressure, the Taiwanese army announced that it had deployed fighter planes, ships and anti-missile defense systems on Thursday for maneuvers, the first since last June.
The Taiwanese Defense Ministry also reported Thursday that it had detected two Chinese balloons about 110 kilometers northwest of the island on Wednesday. Another Chinese balloon was detected on Sunday in the same area, the first since April.
Taiwan considers this practice as a form of so-called “gray zone” harassment, that is to say hostile, but not amounting to open warfare.
