BEIJING/TAIPEI: China urged the US on Friday not to permit Taiwan’s president to travel through US territory en route to the island’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a sensitive visit shortly ahead of US President Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing.
China considers democratic Taiwan to be a wayward province ineligible for state-to-state relations and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.
China regularly calls Taiwan the most sensitive and important issue between it and the US, and Beijing always complains to Washington about transit stops by Taiwanese presidents.
President Tsai Ing-wen departs on Saturday on a week-long trip to three Pacific island allies — Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands and the Marshall Islands — transiting via Honolulu and Guam.
It comes less than two weeks before Trump is due to visit China. Trump angered Beijing last December by taking a telephone call from Tsai shortly after he won the presidential election.
China has made “stern representations” to the US over the matter, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, urging the US to strictly abide by the “one China” policy.
China hopes the US does “not allow her to transit, not send any wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces and take real actions to protect the overall picture of China-US relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Geng told a news briefing.
The trip to the US will be Tsai’s second this year. In January she stopped over in Houston and San Francisco on her way to and from Latin America, visiting the headquarters of micro-messaging service Twitter, which is blocked in China, while in California.
In Houston, she met Republican US Senator Ted Cruz and Texas Governor Greg Abbott. She also spoke by telephone with US senator John McCain, head of the powerful Senate Committee on Armed Services.
China suspects Tsai wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a red line for Beijing. Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China, but will defend Taiwan’s democracy and security.
China has heaped pressure on Taiwan since Tsai took office last year, suspending a regular dialogue mechanism and slowly peeling away its few remaining diplomatic allies.
Just 20 countries now maintain formal ties with Taiwan, mostly small states in Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
The US has no formal ties with Taiwan, but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island’s main source of arms.
Tsai’s call with Trump was the first between US and Taiwan leaders since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979.
Ahead of Trump trip, China urges US not to allow Taiwan president in
Ahead of Trump trip, China urges US not to allow Taiwan president in
Trump ‘very disappointed’ with UK’s Starmer for blocking use of air bases, Telegraph says
- UK PM then said bases could be used in “defensive” operations
- Trump says it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind
LONDON: Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for not allowing the US to use the Diego Garcia air base to carry out strikes on Iran, the Daily Telegraph quoted the US president as saying in an interview.
Britain had reportedly initially denied the US permission to conduct air strikes from its bases, but on Sunday evening Starmer said he was accepting a request for their use in any “defensive” strikes the US wanted to make against Iranian targets.
In an interview published on Monday Trump told the British newspaper that it took “too long” for Starmer to change his mind.
“That’s probably never happened between our countries before,” he told the Telegraph, adding: “It sounds like he was worried about the legality.”
Trump said Starmer should have approved from the get-go the American use of Diego Garcia — a strategically important US-UK air base in the Indian Ocean — saying Iran was responsible for killing “a lot of people from your country.”
Britain was not involved in the joint US-Israel air strikes on Iran that killed the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
Since attacks on Iran started on Saturday, Iran has been targeting Gulf countries with missiles, and on Sunday an Iranian-made drone hit Britain’s RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus, causing limited damage and no casualties.
Trump said it was “useful” that the US would now be able to launch operations from Diego Garcia, as he also criticized a deal Starmer has made over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, where Diego Garcia is based.
