A delegation of US lawmakers led by Republican Lindsey Graham arrived in Taiwan to meet with members of the government, days after China promised “forceful measures” to a possible visit by US House of Representatives leader Nancy Pelosi.
The arrival last night of the group, from Australia and composed of six Republican and Democratic senators and congressmen, had not been previously announced.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu received politicians at Sonshan Airport in Taipei, who will remain on the island until this afternoon and have meetings with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen and Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng on the agenda, according to a note from the Foreign Ministry.
According to a statement from the American Institute of Taiwan (the 'de facto' U.S. The trip is part of a broader tour to the Indo-Pacific region, and among the topics to be addressed are “US-Taiwan relations, regional security and other important issues of mutual interest.”
Along with Graham, the group is made up of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez; Upper House Security Committee Member Robert Portman; Senators Richard Burr and Ben Sasse, and Congressman Ronny Jackson.
The presence of US politicians prompted an immediate protest from Beijing, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan.
Zhao Lijian, one of the spokesmen for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, recalled that his country opposes any form of official contact between the US and Taiwan, urged legislators to adhere to the “one-China principle” and warned them that they should not continue to move on what he called a “dangerous path.”
It was also Zhao who on April 7 warned that a possible visit by Pelosi announced then by Taiwanese and Japanese media would “damage the foundations of China-US relations” and “send wrong signals to separatists” in Taiwan.
For the time being, politics has not traveled to the island, a visit that, if it occurred, would be the first visit by a president of the US House of Representatives to Taiwan since 1997, when Newt Gingrich was there.
Taiwan is one of the biggest causes of conflict between Beijing and Washington, mainly because the US country is Taiwan's main arms supplier and could be its greatest military ally in a hypothetical war conflict with China.
China, which claims sovereignty over the island, considers Taiwan a rebellious province since the Kuomintang nationalists retreated there in 1949 after losing the civil war against the communists.
(With information from EFE)
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