China calls on US to keep Taiwan president from stopping in Hawaii
- Tsai Ing-wen begins trip to Pacific diplomatic allies Palau, Nauru and Marshall Islands
- Beijing reiterates its opposition to US transit accommodation that might ‘send any wrong signals’
China called on the US on Thursday to bar Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen from making a stopover in Hawaii on her trip to visit diplomatic allies in the Pacific.
“On Taiwan’s leader’s stopover in the US, China has expressed our stance multiple times. We have lodged stern representations with the United States. We firmly oppose the US, or other countries that have official diplomatic relations with China, arranging this kind of transit,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a daily briefing.
“We call for the US to scrupulously abide by the ‘one China’ principle … not to let Tsai Ing-wen cross their border, not to send any wrong signals to the Taiwan independence forces, and to protect Sino-US relations with practical actions.”
Tsai departed Taiwan on Thursday to tour Palau, Nauru and the Marshall Islands, a trip that is scheduled to include a stopover in Hawaii next Wednesday.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that must eventually be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary, and views any pro-independence activity as contrary to China’s national interests.
Beijing has taken an increasingly hard line since Tsai, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, took office in 2016 and refused to acknowledge the one-China consensus that has formed the basis of cross-strait relations since 1992.
