Contact is taking a holiday!

The Guardian – 22 December 2016

Planned trip causes speculation in Washington and Taiwan that Tsai Ing-wen may meet Donald Trump in person

Taiwan’s president is planning to meet members of Congress next month during a stopover visit to the US that will go ahead despite strong Chinese government objections, a senior Taiwanese official has said.

China tried to block the visit by President Tsai Ing-wen in the wake of a row over perceived pro-Taiwan comments by the US president-elect, Donald Trump, who also held an unprecedented phone conversation with the Taiwan leader.

The visit has caused speculation in Washington and Taiwan that Tsai may meet Trump in person, or members of his transition team, during a nine-day trip that begins on 7 January and includes brief state visits to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.

Speaking to the Taiwan legislature’s foreign and national defence committee, Javier Hou, deputy foreign minister, said Tsai’s planned stopover in the US would be made in accordance with past practice.

The foreign ministry was seeking to arrange for Tsai to meet members of the US Senate and House of Representatives, Hou said. The exact locations of the meetings, and the duration of the stopover, have yet to be announced. Trump’s transition HQ is in New York.

Trump infuriated China’s leadership when he spoke to Tsai on the phone and later made separate comments questioning the longstanding “one China” policy, under which the US notionally accepts Beijing’s view that Taiwan is part of China. The US does not officially host Taiwanese leaders.

Taiwan has been self-governing and de facto independent since the end of China’s civil war. Beijing regards it as a renegade province.

Alex Huang, spokesman for Taiwan’s presidential office, denied that the planning or disclosure of the transit stops were being delayed due to pressure from China. “There is no problem of that kind,” Huang said.

But China this week reiterated its strong objection to Tsai and her 90-strong government delegation touching down on US soil, claiming that allowing her to do so would “send wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces”.

Hua Chunying, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, suggested that Tsai, whose ruling Democratic Progressive party is viewed with deep suspicion in Beijing, would use the trip to rally diplomatic and political opposition to China.

“As for the question of the leader of the Taiwan region possibly transiting the United States, I think her real aim needs no explanation,” Hua said.

Any meeting between Tsai and Trump or his advisers would be politically explosive, coming so close to Trump’s inauguration on 20 January. It would probably exacerbate tensions caused by the president-elect’s blunt criticisms of Chinese trade policy, military activity in the South China Sea, and recent seizure of a US underwater research drone.

China initially accused Tsai of playing a trick by inducing Trump to take her congratulatory phone call after his November election victory. But Beijing’s tone has since grown more threatening, with officials vowing to defend China’s “core interest” of reunification with Taiwan.

Recent days have seen stepped-up Chinese military activity in international airspace around Taiwan. China maintains thousands of missiles across the Taiwan Strait. State media have published calls for China to be ready to achieve reunification by force if necessary.

Tensions have also been stoked by this week’s decision by the indebted west African country, São Tomé and Príncipe, to break off ties with Taiwan and align itself with China. Taiwanese MPs said China was using “dollar diplomacy” to further isolate the island, an accusation China angrily rejected on Thursday.

Beijing has gradually been chipping away at Taiwan’s overseas relationships. It consistently opposes Taiwanese membership of international forums. After losing São Tomé and Príncipe, Taiwan has formal diplomatic relations with 20 countries and the Holy See remaining, mostly small countries that look to it for development aid.

Tsai appealed for unity this week at a closed-doors meeting of her ruling DPP. “At a time of change, national solidarity across party lines is increasingly needed to fight against foreign forces,” a party spokesman, Yang Chia-liang, quoted Tsai as saying. “China has never stopped suppressing Taiwan’s international participation and diplomatic efforts.”

In a People’s Daily interview, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, said the stakes were high. “Going forward, China-US relations will face new complexities and uncertain factors … Only if China and the US respect each and give consideration to other’s core interests and key concerns can there be long-term, stable cooperation,” he said.

Referring to Trump in apparently unflattering terms, Wang said one individual could not buck historical trends and quoted from an ancient Chinese poem. “Thick mountains cannot stop the river from flowing into the sea,” he said.