(Bloomberg) -- China warned the Biden administration to tread cautiously on the issue of Taiwan after President Lai Ching-te landed in Hawaii on his first stopover on US soil.
Lai was welcomed by the governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, after arriving Saturday on a stopover as part of a state visit to Taiwan’s Pacific island allies. Before his departure, the Taiwanese president hailed the trip as a “new era in values-based diplomacy.”
China’s Foreign Ministry meanwhile severely condemned the US in a statement Sunday for allowing Lai to transit in Hawaii. Beijing views Taiwan as part of its territory, a claim Lai’s government rejects, and vociferously opposes all official contact with the island that implies statehood.
Lai’s trip comes at a sensitive time, as Joe Biden prepares to leave the White House after repeatedly vowing to defend Taiwan from any Chinese invasion, muddying the long-standing US position of strategic ambiguity. President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power casts doubts over such reassurances, adding fresh turbulence to a major flashpoint between the world’s largest economies as the threat of a new trade war looms.
China is likely to respond by launching military drills near Taiwan around Lai’s return to Taiwan on Dec. 6, Reuters reported earlier, citing assessments by security officials in Taipei and across the region.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Office for its part condemned China in a statement Saturday for damaging regional peace, citing Beijing’s recent military collaboration with Russia.
It is Lai’s first time as president to visit the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Palau and to make a transit stop in the US islands of Hawaii and Guam.
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