HONOLULU– On a two-day visit to Hawaii, the President of Taiwan Lai Ching-te meeting with the state’s governor and congressional representatives as part of a Pacific Island Tour That has already led to criticism from Beijing.
China’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday it “strongly condemned” US support for Lai’s visit and had filed a complaint with the US. It also denounced a recently announced US arms sale to Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as its own territory.
“China will closely monitor the development of the situation and take resolute and strong measures to protect the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the statement said.
Hawaii was Lai’s first stop on a weeklong trip that will later take him to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau. They represent three of the twelve countries with which Taipei maintains formal diplomatic relations.
Hawaiis Gov. Josh Green On Saturday, Lai was a guest at the state emergency management agency, where they discussed disaster preparedness. Green, who was a longtime emergency room doctor before becoming governor, posted on social media that he and Lai discussed how their experiences in health care influenced their administration. Lai is also a physician by training and holds a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University.
“Together we extended a warm aloha to Lai and his delegation, highlighting Hawaii’s shared values of resilience and cooperation with Taiwan,” Green said in an Instagram post.
Lai also visited the Bishop Museum, Hawaii’s premier museum of natural history and native Hawaiian culture.
In the evening, Lai posed for photos with Hawaiian congressional representatives and state lawmakers at a dinner with the Taiwanese American community.
U.S. Rep. Ed Case, a Democrat who represents Honolulu in Congress, said on social media he told the audience that “our ties continued based on shared values and interests to advance mutual goals and address shared challenges.”
It is unclear whether Lai met with senior officials from the Biden administration or anyone from the new Trump administration during his time in Hawaii.
Newly elected President Donald Trump said this in an interview with Bloomberg in July Taiwan should pay for its defense. The island has purchased billions of dollars worth of defense weapons from the US
Trump dodged the question of whether he would defend the island Chinese military action.
The new weapons announced Friday by the US State Department include $385 million in spare parts and equipment for a fleet of F-16s, as well as support for a tactical communications system with Taiwan.
The US is obligated to help the island defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act, but maintains a position of strategic ambiguity over whether it would ever become involved if Taiwan were invaded by China.
Former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen then faced vocal opposition from China stopped in New York last year on the way to Latin America. Tsai met with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the time.
The Chinese military also launched exercises Taiwan last year as a “stern warning” about what it days later called a conspiracy between “separatists and foreign forces.” Lai, then vice president of Taiwan, made a stopover in the US
China also strongly objects to senior US politicians visiting the island, as it views any official contact with foreign governments and Taiwan as an infringement on its claims of sovereignty over Taiwan. Washington switched its formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.