TAOYUAN, Taiwan: Taiwan Vice President William Lai returned on Friday from a sensitive visit to the United States, a trip China has condemned and which has brought warnings from Taiwanese officials it could prompt more Chinese military drills near the island.
“Because of everyone’s hard work, Taiwan’s power is stronger and stronger, and it showed the international community that Taiwan is a force for good, that the international community really pays great attention to Taiwan,” he said after returning to Taiwan’s main international airport at Taoyuan.
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has denounced the transit stops in the US, calling Lai a separatist and a “troublemaker.”
Taiwanese officials have said China is likely to conduct military exercises this week near the island, using Lai’s US stopovers as a pretext to intimidate voters ahead of next year’s presidential election and make them “fear war.”
Democratically governed Taiwan has so far not reported any unusual Chinese military movements near the island.
Amid heightened tensions between the China and the US, Asia has seen a flurry of military posturing and joint drills on both sides in recent weeks.
On Thursday, Japan’s government reported 11 Chinese and Russian naval ships, including destroyers, had crossed waters between the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa and Miyako, a waterway crucial to access to the Pacific and East China Seas.
The islands lie directly to the east of Taiwan and Okinawa is home to a major US military base.
A person familiar with security planning in the region told Reuters the China-Russian fleet had conducted simulation attacks on US forces stationed in Okinawa as well as drills to seize strategic locations.
The US Ronald Reagan carrier strike group was also in the waters about 800 nautical miles (1,500 km) off Taiwan’s eastern coast as of Thursday evening, the person added.
A spokesperson at Japan’s Joint Staff Office said it was not aware of any such simulations by the Chinese and Russian fleets.
“They have not intruded into Japan’s territorial waters and we have not confirmed any dangerous behavior,” the spokesperson said.
“We have offered through diplomatic channels that the repeated joint actions of Chinese and Russian forces in the sea and airspace around Japan are a serious concern from a security perspective.”
Russia’s defense ministry said on Friday the Russian and Chinese ships “conducted anti-submarine drills, repelled an air raid by a mock enemy, trained for rescue operations at sea, and mastered skills for take offs and landings on decks of war ships.”
The US Navy’s 7th Fleet did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and neither did China’s Taiwan Affairs Office nor the Chinese defense ministry.
STOPOVER DIPLOMACY
On Friday, the Taiwan defense ministry’s official news agency put out a slickly produced publicity video showing fighters jets taking off and missiles being readied.
“Nobody can encroach on our sovereignty,” reads an accompanying caption for the video entitled “The military of the Republic of China is duty-bound to maintain regional peace and stability,” referring to Taiwan’s formal name.
Lai officially only made transits in the United States, first in New York and then in San Francisco, on his way to and from Paraguay to attend the new president’s inauguration in one of only 13 countries that maintains formal ties with Taipei.
While in the United States, he gave speeches to the Taiwanese community and met officials from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a US government-run non-profit that handles unofficial relations.
Lai is frontrunner to be Taiwan’s next president at elections set for January. President Tsai Ing-wen cannot run again after two terms.
China especially dislikes Lai because of comments he has previously made about being a “practical worker for Taiwan independence,” though he has pledged on the campaign trail to maintain the status quo and offered talks with Beijing.
Speaking after stepping off his flight, Lai made only passing mention of his US stopovers, concentrating instead on Paraguay and pledges of support he received there.
“Thank you for your contributions to the country and to society,” he said, “allowing Taiwan to very progressively, self confidently and respectfully go into the international community, and winning the support of the international community.”
Taiwan vice president returns from sensitive visit to US
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Taiwan vice president returns from sensitive visit to US
- China claims Taiwan as its territory and has denounced the transit stops in the US
- Taiwanese officials said China likely to conduct military exercises this week near the island
Trump warns Maduro against playing ‘tough’ as US escalates pressure campaign on Venezuela
- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday fired back at Donald Trump, who has ordered US naval forces to blockade the South American country's oil wealth, saying the US president would be "better off" focusing on domestic issues rather than threatenin
- The Defense Department, under Trump’s orders, continues its campaign of attacks on smaller vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that it alleges are carrying drugs to the United States and beyond
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: President Donald Trump on Monday delivered a new warning to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as the US Coast Guard steps up efforts to interdict oil tankers in the Caribbean Sea as part of the Republican administration’s escalating pressure campaign on the government in Caracas.
Trump was surrounded by his top national security aides, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as he suggested that he remains ready to further escalate his four-month pressure campaign on the Maduro government, which began with the stated purpose of stemming the flow of illegal drugs from the South American nation but has developed into something more amorphous.
“If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’ll ever be able to play tough,” Trump said of Maduro as he took a break from his Florida holiday vacation to announce plans for the Navy to build a new, large warship.
Trump levied his latest threat as the US Coast Guard on Monday continued for a second day to chase a sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration describes as part of a “dark fleet” Venezuela is using to evade US sanctions. The tanker, according to the White House, is flying under a false flag and is under a US judicial seizure order.
“It’s moving along and we’ll end up getting it,” Trump said.
It is the third tanker pursued by the Coast Guard, which on Saturday seized a Panama-flagged vessel called Centuries that US officials said was part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet.
The Coast Guard, with assistance from the Navy, seized a sanctioned tanker called Skipper on Dec. 10, also part of the shadow fleet of tankers that the US says operates on the fringes of the law to move sanctioned cargo. That ship was registered in Panama.
Trump, after that first seizure, said the US would carry out a “blockade” of Venezuela. Trump has repeatedly said that Maduro’s days in power are numbered.
Last week, Trump demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from US oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a blockade against sanctioned oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency oversees the Coast Guard, said in a Monday appearance on “Fox & Friends” that the targeting of tankers is intended to send “a message around the world that the illegal activity that Maduro is participating in cannot stand, he needs to be gone, and that we will stand up for our people.”
Russian diplomats evacuate families from Caracas
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry started evacuating the families of diplomats from Venezuela, according to a European intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
The official told The Associated Press the evacuations include women and children and began on Friday, adding that Russian Foreign Ministry officials are assessing the situation in Venezuela in “very grim tones.” The ministry said in an X posting that it was not evacuating the embassy but did not address queries about whether it was evacuating the families of diplomats.
Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil on Monday said he spoke by phone with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, who he said expressed Russia’s support for Venezuela against Trump’s declared blockade of sanctioned oil tankers.
“We reviewed the aggressions and flagrant violations of international law that have been committed in the Caribbean: attacks against vessels and extrajudicial executions, and the unlawful acts of piracy carried out by the United States government,” Gil said in a statement.
The scene on a Venezuelan beach near a refinery
While US forces targeted the vessels in international waters over the weekend, a tanker that’s considered part of the shadow fleet was spotted moving between Venezuelan refineries, including one about three hours west of the capital, Caracas.
The tanker remained at the refinery in El Palito through Sunday, when families went to the town’s beach to relax with children now on break from school.
Music played on loudspeakers as people swam and surfed with the tanker in the background. Families and groups of teenagers enjoyed themselves, but Manuel Salazar, who has parked cars at the beach for more than three decades, noticed differences from years past, when the country’s oil-dependent economy was in better shape and the energy industry produced at least double the current 1 million barrels per day.
“Up to nine or 10 tankers would wait out there in the bay. One would leave, another would come in,” Salazar, 68, said. “Now, look, one.”
The tanker in El Palito has been identified by Transparencia Venezuela, an independent watchdog promoting government accountability, to be part of the shadow fleet.
Area residents on Sunday recalled when tankers would sound their horns at midnight New Year’s Eve, while some would even send up fireworks to celebrate the holiday.
“Before, during vacations, they’d have barbecues; now all you see is bread with bologna,” Salazar said of Venezuelan families spending the holiday at the beach next to the refinery. “Things are expensive. Food prices keep going up and up every day.”
Venezuela’s ruling party-controlled National Assembly on Monday gave initial approval to a measure that would criminalize a broad range of activities that could be linked to the seizure of oil tankers.
Lawmaker Giuseppe Alessandrello, who introduced the bill, said people could be fined and imprisoned for up to 20 years for promoting, requesting, supporting, financing or participating in “acts of piracy, blockades or other international illegal acts against” commercial entities operating with the South American country.
The Defense Department, under Trump’s orders, continues its campaign of attacks on smaller vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that it alleges are carrying drugs to the United States and beyond.
At least 104 people have been killed in 28 known strikes since early September. The strikes have faced scrutiny from US lawmakers and human rights activists, who say the administration has offered scant evidence that its targets are indeed drug smugglers and that the fatal strikes amount to extrajudicial killings.
