This five-day stay of parliamentarians from the United States Congress occurs after the visit, on Friday, to the island territory of the US Undersecretary of Defense, Michael Chase, according to the British newspaper Financial Times.
“Taiwan and the United States continue to strengthen military exchanges,” Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday after meeting with American parliamentarians.
He stressed that “Taiwan would cooperate even more actively with the United States and other democratic partners to confront international challenges such as authoritarian expansionism and climate change.”
The Taiwanese president, however, did not specify what these future exchanges would include, but stressed that it was time to “explore more possibilities for cooperation” between the island and the United States. “Together we can continue to protect the values of democracy and freedom,” he insisted.
Asked on Tuesday about the American visit, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, reacted by accusing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in power in Taiwan, of “provocations in favor of the independence” of the island.
“This will not change the fact that Taiwan is part of China (…) and will not change the general trend towards the inevitable reunification of China,” he stressed during a regular press conference.
“Doomed to fail”
“Any conspiracy or action to secede (from China) based on foreign support and undermine relations between (the Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan) will only be counterproductive to its own perpetrators and is doomed to failure.”
China considers Taiwan, with 23 million inhabitants, one of its provinces, which it has not yet managed to reunify with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
Therefore, Beijing opposes any official or military contact between the island’s authorities and foreign countries. However, in recent years, several official trips by US officials have drawn the ire of Beijing.
Sino-US relations deteriorated after the US destruction of a Chinese balloon in early February over US territory, presented by Washington as a spy device and by Beijing as a civilian balloon.
In Taipei, California, Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the new House Strategic Competition Committee with the Chinese Communist Party, said the visit was aimed at expanding “military and defense forces” and cementing U.S. ties with the island, one leader said. in the semiconductor sector.
Fleas
The Democratic parliamentarian said he “particularly enjoyed” his meeting with Morris Chang, founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading chip manufacturer.
The semiconductor industry has been hit by a slowdown in the global economy that has slowed demand, and by a series of US export controls aimed at limiting Beijing’s ability to buy and manufacture high-end chips, used according to Washington “in military applications.” ”.
Last year, relations between China and the United States hit their lowest point in August after Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan.
In retaliation for what Beijing considered a provocation, the Chinese military responded with gigantic military maneuvers around the island.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China could accelerate its timetable for a possible military invasion of Taiwan, which, however, remains hypothetical.
Washington recognizes the communist government in Beijing (the “People’s Republic of China”) as the sole legitimate representative of China, while being the main supporter of Taipei (the “Republic of China”).
The United States provides the island with weapons for its defense and supports the territory’s right to decide its future.
