Taiwan s president Tsai Ing-wen arrived in New York to crowds of supporters and protesters on a stopover visit that China has labelled as a provocation. Tsai is stopping in the US twice during her 10 day visit to diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize. Her itinerary has not been revealed and no of the events were open to the public or media. Videos shared on social media and from the traveling press pack show her arriving at a New York hotel, waving at a crowd holding US and Taiwan flags.
A larger crowd of protesters gathered nearby, waving U.S. and Chinese flags and holding signs saying there is only one China in the world. Taiwan independence is a dead end and support China s reunification. Taiwan supporters also held a sign saying Taiwan so awesome even China can't stop talking about us. Another irony was that the Chinese supporters were allowed to protest in the US.
Surrounded by a heavy security detail and accompanied by Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US, Hsiao Bi-khim, Tsai later attended a dinner with Taiwanese living overseas. The ministry of foreign affairs of China rejected the characterisation on Wednesday.
The trip is not so much a transit but an attempt to find breakthroughs and promote Taiwan's independence, said Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Taiwanese government. The issue is not about China over reacting, but the US egregiously supports and opposes Taiwan independence separatists. The US government has said she will not meet anyone from the Biden administration, and the stopovers are unofficial. It has warned that Beijing is not allowed to use Tsai's normal visit as a pretext for hostile action.
Beijing sabotages any international interaction with Taiwan's government. It claims Taiwan is a Chinese province and has vowed to annex it. Taiwan s leaders maintain that it is a sovereign nation with no need to declare independence, and that its future is for its people to decide.
There are expectations that Tsai will meet the US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Los Angeles on her return journey. If the meeting goes ahead, Beijing is going to fight back. McCarthy was keen to visit Taiwan.
A meeting between the two in the US has been described as an effort to avoid a repeat of last August when McCarthy's predecessor Nancy Pelosi stopped in Taipei and met Tsai. The visit angered Beijing, which staged days of intensive live-fire military drills around Taiwan's main island in response.
Beijing warned Tsai not to meet McCarthy, saying it would be considered a provocation and they would definitely take measures to resolutely fight back. But on Thursday, the director general of Taiwan s national security bureau told parliament it expected a less hostile reaction to a Tsai-McCarthy meeting on US soil.
The actions the Chinese communists might take are unlikely to go as big as when Pelosi visited last August, the director general Tsai Ming-yen said.
She will be meeting in the United States, so the political complexity is not as high as the speaker coming to Taiwan. He said earlier this week that Taiwan had detected no signs of unusual Chinese military activity or escalation.