Beijing protests Taiwan’s visit to the Philippines

Taiwan’s foreign minister has flown to the Philippines as head of a high-level delegation of investors, two senior Philippine officials said Saturday, prompting a protest from China and a warning to Manila “not to play with fire.”

Relations between China and the Philippines have been strained as their coast guards and other forces spar in increasingly tense confrontations over the ownership of islands and fishing grounds in the disputed South China Sea.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung’s visit earlier this week to Manila and the Clark Freeport Zone, an industrial hub north of the capital, has exacerbated the tensions.

Philippine officials have publicly neither confirmed nor denied news reports of Lin’s visit, but two members of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Cabinet told The Associated Press that Taiwan’s top diplomat flew to the country “in his private capacity” to lead a major delegation of Taiwanese investors and business executives in the semiconductor and other key industries.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said that “no official from Taiwan (was) recognized as a member of the business delegation that recently visited the Philippines,” suggesting that Lin came as a private business representative.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing issued a strongly worded protest in Manila and Beijing and said that by allowing Lin to visit, the Philippines has provided a platform for “‘Taiwan independence’ separatists to engage in anti-China activities” and has “severely violated its own commitment on Taiwan-related issues.”

It urged the Philippines to “stop pursuing the wrong course and return to the right track at once, stop playing with fire on issues concerning China’s core interests.” JIM GOMEZ, MANILA, MDT/AP