China has called Taiwan’s vice president William Lai a “troublemaker” for his ongoing visit to the US.
Mr Lai, a frontrunner in Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election, visited the US on his way to Paraguay.
Beijing, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province, has increasingly voiced its disapproval of meetings between US and Taiwanese lawmakers.
China on Sunday accused Washington of engaging Taiwan in political activities under the guise of a stopover.
Mr Lai, a candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in New York over the weekend. He gave a speech at an informal gathering, pledging to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty in the face of “authoritarianism”. He is scheduled to also stop in San Francisco on his way back to Taiwan later this week.
The visit from the 63-year-old former doctor, who has previously called himself a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence”, comes at a low point in US-China relations. Taiwan has emerged as the biggest flashpoint between the two countries.
Taipei has said Beijing is most likely to conduct military drills near the island this week.
It’s “very likely” within days of Mr Lai’s return, said David Gitter, a non-resident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research.
He said it was a “a boundary that Beijing once rarely crossed but has done so with increased frequency since [then US House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s trip last year”.
Her visit in August 2022 saw China launch its largest ever military exercises in the waters around Taiwan. Then in April this year, Beijing again responded with drills to a meeting between Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.
Ms Tsai’s earlier visits to the US – in 2015 and 2020, both of which were months before she was elected president – also led to a show of military might on the part of Beijing.
The ostensible reason for Mr Lai’s visit is that he’s representing President Tsai at the swearing-in ceremony for Paraguay’s newly elected president, Santiago Peña. Paraguay is one of only 13 countries that continues to maintain formal ties with Taiwan
But it’s also the moment when Mr Lai steps out on to the international stage, ahead of a crucial election.
China, which views Mr Lai as a Taiwan independence advocate, probably does not want him to win the election next year. However, it’s widely believed that Beijing’s hard-line tactics against President Tsai ahead of the 2020 election backfired, helping her to secure re-election.
This time China has a difficult path to tread. While it wants to show its disapproval, it is keen to do so without boosting Mr Lai’s image and his message. Instead, analysts say, it may turn up the volume on military intrusions around Taiwan.
But the average number of intrusions per week is already higher compared to last year. And that rate is being sustained by Beijing, which has made so-called “grey zone warfare” – the use of tactics that fall short of qualifying as armed conflict – the new normal, wearing down Taiwan’s defences, exhausting its personnel and wearing out its aircraft.
Some analysts have warned that Mr Lai’s remarks may further escalate tensions between Washington and Taipei.
Mr Lai said that only Taiwan’s people can decide their future, and that Taiwan and China are “not subordinate to each other”. He also stressed that he was “very willing” to talk to China to seek peace and stability – common rhetoric in the run-up to the election, as candidates look to gather support without angering Beijing.
Though the US severed formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979, it has remained a close ally, selling billions of dollars worth of arms under the Taiwan Relations Act, which states that the US must provide the island with the means to defend itself.
Taiwan regards itself as distinct from mainland China, with its own laws and a democratically elected government. But Beijing, especially under Xi Jinping, has vowed to take the island, by force if necessary.
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