Taiwan’s Vice President William Lai is traveling and has landed in New York where he was greeted at the airport by representatives of the American Institute in Taiwan, which in practice functions as the US Embassy.
The visit is officially a stopover en route to Paraguay where Lai will attend the installation of President-elect Santiago Peña. On the way back to Taiwan, the trip goes via San Francisco.
But Lai’s visit to US soil has angered China, which responded on Sunday by promising “resolute and forceful measures”.
“China is closely monitoring the development of the situation and will take resolute and forceful measures to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” read a statement from an unnamed spokesperson at the country’s foreign ministry posted online.
In the statement, China further writes, among other things, that it “resolutely opposes” any form of official exchange between the United States and Taiwan.
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction with and strongly condemns the US insistence on arranging William Lai’s ‘transit’ to the US,” the spokesperson said.
FACT Taiwan
Taiwan consists of a main island and several smaller islands in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Asian mainland.
The nation functions as an independent and democratic state, but is recognized as such by only a handful of countries. China sees Taiwan as a breakaway region that should be part of China.
China does not accept that other countries have relations with both Beijing and the Taiwanese government in Taipei.
Taiwan’s 23 million people have long lived with the threat of an invasion, but it has intensified under Xi Jinping’s tenure as president of China.
For strategic reasons, the US has chosen not to say clearly whether it will defend Taiwan in the event of an attack from China.
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