Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will leave on Wednesday for a 10-day tour of Central America with two scheduled stops in the United States, where she is expected to meet with congressional leaders including Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
Tsai’s trip will take her on an official state visit to Guatemala and Belize – two of Taiwan’s last remaining diplomatic allies – but it’s her time in the US that will probably get the most scrutiny despite her unofficial status.
The US does not recognize Taiwan, officially called the Republic of China (ROC), as the island is also claimed by Beijing, but Washington is nevertheless a key ally of the democratically governed nation.
The Taiwanese president is expected to deliver a March 30 speech in New York hosted by the Hudson Institute, a conservative American think tank, on her way to Latin America and then again at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on her return to Asia in April .
There’s an unspoken rule that Taiwanese presidents don’t make official visits to the U.S. or travel to the capital Washington, D.C., but “transit stops” have become more elaborate in recent years, said Kwei-Bo Huang, an associate professor of diplomacy at the Taiwanese National Chengchi University.
“In the past, the president was unable to give a public speech and communicate publicly with American political figures in the US,” Huang said.
“Now the president can do that, but the US executive still does not allow officials to meet or participate in US ROC presidential events.”
The passage of the Taiwan Travel Act of 2018 under the Trump administration has also made it easier for Taiwanese and US officials to meet, as Taiwan and the US grew closer as relations between the two countries and China have eased.
Tsai has visited the US four times since first taking office in 2016, during which time she met Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and each trip has become more formal than the last.
However, there are limits.
Tsai’s trip to the US is still widely seen as a temporary solution to McCarthy’s visit to Taiwan, as both sides hope not to anger China, which staged military exercises in the Taiwan Strait for several days and fired missiles to protest against a journey of its predecessor last year. , Nancy Pelosi. The trip was the highest visit by a US official in 25 years.
But Taipei and Washington also want to avoid giving in to Beijing’s threats by canceling a McCarthy trip altogether.
Taiwan’s presidential office confirmed the dates of Tsai’s trip, but not the itinerary, while Beijing said it “seriously concernedto learn that Tsai would be visiting the US and voiced his objection.
“Such visits are a reaffirmation of US support for Taiwan at a time when critics of the Tsai government – and the CCP – seek to cast doubt on the reliability and commitment of the US as a partner to Taiwan,” said J Michael Cole , a Taipei Advisor to the International Republican Institute (IRI).
Transition time in Taiwan?
Tsai’s trip also comes at a difficult moment of transition for Taiwan, which lost diplomatic recognition to Honduras on Sunday, leaving it with just 13 diplomatic allies around the world, including the Holy See in Rome.
Already isolated when Tsai took office in 2016, China has continued to cut off Taiwan’s official partners, including Panama, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
While relations with China are often strained, Beijing has a particular distaste for Tsai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which see Taiwan as a de facto independent state, though they have not declared full independence to avoid war with China .
Taiwan’s future is also back on the national agenda as Taiwan begins to gear up for the next presidential election in January 2024 — and its political leaders outside of Tsai are on the move.
Ko Wen-je, the former mayor of Taipei and chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party, will visit the US in April as an opening bid to become president.
While Tsai visits the US, her presidential predecessor and Kuomintang (KMT) heavyweight Ma Ying-jeou traveled to China on Monday to honor his ancestors’ graves and meet with Taiwanese students.
Although KMT leaders regularly visit China, Ma’s trip was groundbreaking, as he became the first former or current Taiwanese president to visit China since 1949, when the ROC and the People’s Republic of China split.
“Given the timing — in the wake of Honduras and Xi’s meeting with a war criminal in the Kremlin — there are reasons to believe that the timing of the visit was ill-advised and could hurt the KMT ahead of the elections in 2024.” said Cole of the IRI.
The KMT is known in Taiwan as much more China-friendly than Tsai or the DPP, and Ma’s trip sends a signal to voters that the KMT is ready and able to negotiate with Beijing after years of deteriorating relations, said Jason Hsu, a former KMT. legislator and senior research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.
The KMT, including Ma, may be banking voters who want change.
“Ma wants to act as a messenger of peace to communicate with China’s leaders,” Hsu said.
“Ma is trying to provide a way for the Chinese leadership that KMT can return to power in 2024 and that the KMT can manage the relationship better than DPP,” he said.
“So they are trying to give some assurance to Chinese leaders: ‘Don’t be so aggressive with Taiwan, when the KMT comes back to power, there can be more communication,’ he added.
