Beijing lashes out over ‘personal’ visit to US by incoming Taiwan vice-president
Taiwan’s vice-president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim is visiting the United States on a “personal” trip that has riled Beijing.
The visit by Hsiao – former de facto ambassador to Washington, who will be sworn in as vicepresident in May – was confirmed by the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for Beijing’s embassy in Washington, said it opposed any visit by Hsiao to the US “in any name or under whatever pretext”, according to a Reuters report on Tuesday.
Liu called Hsiao a “diehard ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist” and said Washington should “not arrange any form of contact” between him and US government officials.
Hsiao, 52, of the independence-leaning DPP, has been blacklisted and sanctioned twice by Beijing for “colluding with the US” and “provoking confrontation” between Taiwan and the mainland.
President-elect and the current vice-president William Lai Ching-te chose Hsiao as his running mate in January’s election – a pairing Beijing described as a “union of separatists” who would “bring war to Taiwan” if elected.
Hsiao, a fluent English speaker, developed connections with US officials, lawmakers and think tank scholars during her three years as Taiwan’s representative to the country, which ended last November when she joined Lai on the campaign trail.
Her US visit has been kept lowkey compared with Lai’s high-profile trip to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in February 2020, three months before he was sworn in as deputy to incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen.
Both Taiwan’s presidential office and the island’s foreign ministry on Tuesday said they had no information about Hsiao’s US visit.
But Wu Cheng, a DPP spokesman, confirmed the trip, saying Hsiao was “travelling in a personal capacity” and that he had no further details about the visit.
A US State Department official told Reuters that Hsiao was in Washington for a few days “in her personal capacity to tend to personal matters” but did not say if she would meet any officials during the visit.
“The United States has a long-standing precedent of transits by Taiwan officials and visits by candidates and vice-president-elects before they assume office,” the official said.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, Hsiao plans to meet officials during the trip to the US, and would also be packing up personal belongings she left there when she returned to Taiwan to campaign with Lai last year.
The report said Hsiao would discuss the Lai government’s agenda with members of the Joe Biden administration before travelling to several capitals in Europe, also in a private capacity.
Arthur Ding, a retired professor of Chinese security studies and international relations at National Chengchi University in Taipei, said Hsiao could be expected to discuss Lai’s crossstrait policy with US officials.
“Lai’s previous acknowledgement that he was a pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence has aroused concerns in the US, so there is a need for Hsiao or other officials from Taiwan to explain to the US administration how the Lai government will handle its cross-strait policy,” he said.
Beijing warned Taiwan’s voters against electing Lai in the lead-up to January’s election.
Hsiao [must tell the US] how the Lai government will handle its cross-strait policy ARTHUR DING, RETIRED ACADEMIC