Beijing has condemned Tawain President Tsai Ing-wen’s stop in the US, with a Chinese official promising to “fight back.”
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has hailed the island’s relations with the United States during a stopover en route to Central America, a “transit” condemned by Beijing.
Speaking behind closed doors in New York on Wednesday night, Tsai said the relationship between Washington and Taipei was “closer than ever” and praised “significant progress” in economic and security cooperation, according to a statement from her office.
She praised Taiwan as a “beacon of democracy in Asia” and said the island would not become isolated despite the “huge challenges”.
“We have shown a firm will and determination to defend ourselves, that we are able to manage risks with calmness and composure, and that we are able to maintain regional peace and stability,” Tsai said.
Attendees at the event included New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and Laura Rosenberger, president of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which runs the de facto U.S. Embassy in Taiwan.
Tsai will also speak at a Hudson Institute think tank event on Thursday, sources told Reuters news agency, but all events are closed to the press and public.
The layover comes as Tsai travels to Central America, where she will seek support in Guatemala and Belize, part of an ever-shrinking group of countries that recognize Taipei’s sovereignty from Beijing.
She is also scheduled to travel through Los Angeles, California next week on her way home, where she is reportedly meeting with Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy.
Tsai’s trip comes days after Honduras established ties with Beijing and ended its recognition of Taiwan, leaving the island with only 13 allies maintaining formal diplomatic ties.
Beijing claims that Taiwan belongs to “one China” and that as a Chinese province it has no right to ties between states. Taiwan is where the Nationalist government of the Republic of China fled to in 1949, following its defeat by the Chinese Communist Party at the end of the country’s civil war.
Washington has not officially recognized Taiwan since it normalized ties with Beijing in 1979. Still, the US remains a key ally, supplying the island with military training and equipment.
Leading up to Tsai’s tour of the US, White House national security spokesman John Kirby attempted to downplay the importance of the transit in order to avoid tensions with China. He called her trip “in line with our longstanding unofficial relationship with Taiwan”.
On Wednesday, Kirby said: “There is no reason – none – for the Chinese to overreact here”.
Daniel Kritenbrink, the top US diplomat for East Asia, also noted that Tsai had traveled through the US “without incident” six times before.
Still, Beijing has condemned Tsai’s stop in the US. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Zhu Fenglian said on Wednesday that if Tsai met McCarthy, China would “absolutely take steps to resolutely fight back.”
Xu Xueyuan, the chargé d’affaires of China’s embassy in Washington, also told reporters on Wednesday that the US risked a “serious confrontation” if its leaders met Tsai.
Referring to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, Xu warned against other US politicians following her lead and meeting with Tsai.
“The US keeps saying transit is not a visit and there are precedents, but we can’t use past mistakes as an excuse to repeat them today,” she said.
Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last year prompted Beijing to stage several days of military exercises and launch missiles into the Taiwan Strait. She was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
The anticipated meeting between McCarthy and Tsai in California is considered less diplomatic than Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. Still, such a meeting would mark the first time a Taiwanese leader has met a House Speaker on US soil.
As of Thursday, Taipei said the stopover in New York had not triggered any unusual military action from China.