This is his first diplomatic mission since taking office last May. Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te began a week-long tour called “Prosperity, wisdom and sustainability for the Southern Islands”, reports the island's daily newspaper Ziyou Shibao.
Starting Monday, December 2, the leader will travel to Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Palau – three small archipelagos in the Pacific which are among the twelve countries in the world to still recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan as a state in its own right, in detriment of Beijing. Moreover, continues Ziyou Shibao, “Lai Ching-te presented his tour as the entry into a new democratic era”, just to clearly mark its difference with the Chinese one-party regime.
But it is above all the preliminary stopover that the Taiwanese president made in Hawaii, on November 30 and 1is December, which left its mark. And aroused the ire of Beijing: the Chinese nationalist newspaper Huanqiu Shibao recalled the doctrine according to which China “must strongly oppose any form of official trade between the United States and Taiwan,” and more particularly “visits to the United States by leaders of the Taiwan authorities under any name and for any reason.”
Balancing act
And in fact, it is a
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