Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te was welcomed on Saturday with a red carpet and flower necklaces in the American archipelago of Hawaii, the first stop on a tour of several Pacific territories which sparked protests from Beijing. His tour will take him to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, the only nations in the region to recognize Taiwan.
When he got off the plane on Saturday morning, a red carpet awaited him, for his first trip abroad since taking office in May. Such treatment is a first for a Taiwanese leader, his office said. He was welcomed by Hawaii Governor Josh Green and Ingrid Larson, the Washington director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto American embassy on the island.
“We must fight to avoid war”
During a visit to the USS Arizona memorial, dedicated to American sailors killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor, he called on his American partners to commit to maintaining peace, against a backdrop of tensions with China. “Peace has no price and war has no winner. We must fight, fight together to avoid war,” he said in a speech.
Lai said he was “grateful” to the United States for its help in making his tour a success. The partnership between Washington and Taipei is “rock solid,” said American Institute in Taiwan President Laura Rosenberger.
In a speech before takeoff, Lai Ching-te said his tour marked the beginning of “a new democratic era.” He said he wanted to “continue to expand cooperation and deepen partnerships with our allies based on the values of democracy, peace and prosperity.”
Chinese protests
Opposed to any initiative giving the Taiwanese authorities international legitimacy, Beijing denounced this welcome. “China strongly condemns the United States’ organization of the Lai Ching-te “transit” and has sent solemn protests to the United States,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“China will closely monitor the development of the situation and take resolute and effective measures to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he stressed. Beijing considers that Taiwan is one of its provinces, which it has not yet succeeded in reunifying with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war (1949). He does not exclude the use of force to achieve this.
The United States also announced on Friday that it had approved the potential sale of spare parts for F-16 fighter jets and radar systems to Taiwan. In response, China urged the United States “to immediately stop arming Taiwan” and “to encourage and condone forces that seek Taiwan's independence and want to strengthen its military to achieve it,” it said. declared the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
