Senior US diplomat, Taiwan leader speak at Taipei event

A senior U.S. diplomat was scheduled to speak alongside Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen at an event in Taipei last night, just days after President Donald Trump signed a new law promoting exchanges between officials from the two sides that has drawn protests from Beijing.

State Department official Alex Wong’s appearance was due to follow an announcement by Taiwan’s defense minister that China’s sole operating aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, had been spotted entering the Taiwan Strait separating the sides on Tuesday.

Yen Teh-fa told a legislative hearing that Taiwan’s armed forces were monitoring the situation but declined to give further details. The 60,000-ton craft commissioned in 2012 had been conducting military operations in the East China Sea over recent days, Yen said.

The Liaoning has previously transited the heavily trafficked 160 kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait.

Wong’s visit to Taiwan drew fresh criticism yesterday from China, which claims the self-ruled island as its own and has sought to isolate it diplomatically.

China has already lodged a protest over the new Taiwan Travel Law, saying it violates U.S. commitments not to restore formal exchanges severed when Washington switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. Trump signed the law on Friday.

China urges the U.S. to hold to previous undertakings, cease “any kind of official exchanges and interactions with Taiwan, and properly deal with the Taiwan-related issue with caution so as to avoid severe damage to the China-U.S. relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regularly scheduled briefing.

Wong, whose formal title is deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was to speak at a dinner with the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei. Tsai’s office has said she will be speaking at the same event.

His appearance and the signing of the law come as China is ratcheting up diplomatic and economic pressure on Tsai in response to her refusal to endorse Beijing’s “One-China” principle under which Taiwan is considered a part of China.

On Tuesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned any attempt to separate any part of China from the nation would be “doomed to failure,” a message implicitly directed at Taiwan and the U.S. Xi said China would continue to seek peaceful unification with the island, from which it separated amid civil war in 1949, although China has refused to rule out using force to bring Taiwan under its control.

The new U.S. law allows unrestricted travel by U.S. officials to meet with members of Taiwan’s government and for Taiwanese officials to visit the U.S. under “respectful conditions,” during which they are allowed to meet with their counterparts, including those from the departments of state and defense. AP