Leader keeps domestic focus amid China’s isolation
TAIPEI, Taiwan — After a year in office, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration is shunned by an angry China and facing even greater international isolation.
Yet, the island’s first female president seems focused on policy initiatives at home as well as maintaining robust relations with the United States, Taiwan’s most important source of arms and political support.
“I am expecting the leaders on the other side of the Taiwan Strait to accurately interpret the meaning of last year’s presidential elections, and the good intentions that Taiwan tirelessly showed,” she said in a speech to overseas Chinese media representatives Friday.
China cut contacts with Taiwan on June 25 to protest Tsai’s refusal to endorse Beijing’s view that the two sides are part of a single Chinese nation. President Trump’s administration, at least initially, seemed poised to offer new support.
The then-president elect astonished many by talking directly on the phone with Tsai in December, a conversation not held between leaders of the two sides since Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979. He then further stirred the pot by questioning the need to hold to the “One China” policy under which Washington maintains only unofficial ties with Taipei.
Soon afterward, however, he reasserted his support for “One China,” resulting in Chinese President Xi Jinping flying to Trump’s Mar-a-lago resort for an informal summit in April and last week’s announcement of a trade deal under which China will again allow imports of American beef and purchase natural gas from the U.S.
The sides split amid civil war in 1949 and China continues to regard Taiwan as part of its territory, to be recovered by force if necessary.
At home, Tsai has been grappling with matters ranging from social justice to public welfare. She issued a formal apology on behalf of the government to Taiwan’s indigenous people for the discrimination and neglect inflicted on them , and has pushed for legalization of same-sex marriage. Tsai also announced that Taiwan will build its own jet aircraft and submarines, in part to revive local industries but also to counter the intense pressure China exerts on foreign nations not to sell weapons to Taiwan.