US hopes China won’t take ‘provocative’ action over transit stops by Taiwan V-P William Lai

TAIPEI – There is no reason for China to take “provocative” action in response to brief visits to the United States in August by Taiwan Vice-President William Lai, the top United States diplomat in Taipei said on Wednesday.

China, which views Taiwan as its own territory,

has stepped up military and political pressure over the past three years to try and force the island to accept Beijing’s sovereignty claims, which the government in Taipei strongly rejects.

Taiwan will hold presidential and parliamentary elections in January, with Mr Lai, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, being the front runner in most opinion polls.

Taiwan’s government said on Monday that Mr Lai would be stopping off in the US on his way to and from Paraguay for the inauguration of its new president, drawing anger from Beijing, which slammed Mr Lai as a separatist.

Ms Sandra Oudkirk, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, said she did not have details about Mr Lai’s transits, noting that Taiwan itself had not yet said which cities he would go to.

But such transits are routine and have happened many times previously, she added.

“Given the really long distances that people are travelling, these transits really are a way to sort of provide for safety, comfort, convenience and dignity of the traveller,” Ms Oudkirk, the de facto US ambassador in Taiwan, told a news conference.

“On the issue of how the PRC might or might not react, like I said before, this is a routine occurrence,” she added, referring to China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China. “There is absolutely no reason for the PRC to use the transit as a pretext for any sort of provocative action. And we certainly hope that they don’t.”

In August 2022 and then again in April 2023, China staged large-scale war games around Taiwan, angered by the

August visit to Taiwan of then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

and the April meeting of

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy

in Los Angeles while Ms Tsai was in transit on her way home from a visit to Central America.

The US, like most countries, has no formal relations with Taiwan, but is the island’s most important international backer and supplier of arms.

Ms Tsai and her government, including Mr Lai in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in July, have repeatedly offered talks with Beijing, but have been rebuffed as China views them as separatists.

China’s Embassy in Washington on Tuesday, responding to Mr Lai’s op-ed, said his “word tricks aren’t in the interest of peace at all”.

The “DPP’s attempt to sell out Taiwan is despicable. Seeking independence is doomed to fail”, it added. REUTERS