Washington: Taiwan President's visit is not a change in our policy toward China

The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday that it has no objection to a planned visit by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to California to meet with Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

On Tuesday, McCarthy confirmed that he would meet Tsai in his home state of California, avoiding a visit to Taiwan, whose government fears such a move would inflame tensions with Beijing.

Yesterday, State Department spokesman Ned Price referred to Tsai's upcoming trip to the United States as a "transit, not a visit."

Beijing has asked Washington for clarification amid reports of a meeting with the U.S. House of Representatives speaker.

The United States supports Taiwan but does not recognize the island, which China considers an integral part of its territory.

"High-level Taiwanese officials making transit trips through the United States is consistent with longstanding U.S. policy and our informal and strong ties with Taiwan," Price told reporters.

This is not "something new, this is not something that establishes new norms. It's completely consistent with the current situation."

The US spokesman recalled that Tsai has passed through the United States six times so far since her inauguration in 2016.

But the trips Price spoke of were largely just "transit" trips to or from some of Taiwan's few allies in Latin America, not a visit to the United States for talks with a senior U.S. official.

In 1996, the State Department, under pressure from Congress, allowed Taiwan's then-President Lee Teng-hui to visit his alma mater Cornell University in New York, a move that triggered a crisis in which China fired missiles into waters near the island.

China took a similar action last August after a visit by the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.

China considers Taiwan, with a population of 23 million, to be one of its provinces that has been unable to reunite with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Source: Agencies + Al-Mayadeen Net