Leading the fourth US delegation to visit Taiwan this month, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn met on Friday with President Tsai Ing-wen, to whom she offered support for the island to become an independent nation. The pledge symbolizes a direct challenge to China, which considers the rebel province an inalienable part of its territory.
The lawmaker, a longtime critic of Beijing, sits on the Senate Armed Services and Trade committees and said Washington and Taipei share the same democratic values. “It is really important for freedom-loving nations to support Taiwan as they seek to preserve their independence and their freedom,” she said.
The statement, to some extent, confronts the White House’s own official stance on the island. Although they are a strong supporter of Taiwan, the US does not recognize — like most countries — the province as an independent state, even though they oppose any Chinese attempt to take the territory by force.
Both the trip and the senator’s speech help to add even more tension to the open crisis in Washington and Beijing following the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in early August. The Xi Jinping regime sees US officials traveling to Taipei as a violation of its sovereignty, and has often responded to what it sees as provocation with military maneuvers.
Ahead of his trip, Blackburn said in a statement that Taiwan is the US’s strongest partner in the Indo-Pacific region, noting that regular visits by US officials are a longstanding policy. “I will not be intimidated by Communist China into turning away from the island,” she said.
On Friday, after meeting with Tsai, the Republican said the island was interested in military negotiations with Washington. “They’re definitely looking for more,” she stated. “And when it comes to FMS sales [vendas militares estrangeiras, na sigla em inglês], they feel that this is moving too slowly. The pace needs to pick up,” she added.
Since 2017, US presidents have approved more than $18 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, with most of that going to the second half of Donald Trump’s administration. The new approvals have eased under Joe Biden amid delivery delays, supply chain bottlenecks and reports of disagreement between Washington and Taipei over what defense items the island needs.
Blackburn, who is due to stay in Taiwan until Saturday (27), was one of the senators to express support for Pelosi’s trip in early August, even though they were from rival parties.
During Friday’s cabinet meeting, Taiwan’s president said recent visits by American guests are warm acts of kindness and firm support for the province’s determination to defend itself.
Last Tuesday (23), the president made a similar statement, saying that Taiwan is determined to protect itself from enemies, noting that potential invaders – a thinly veiled indirection to China – will pay a “high price” if they incur offensives against China. the territory.
The Biden administration has sought to prevent tensions between Washington and Beijing, inflamed by the visits, from turning into conflict, reiterating that the trips are routine. According to the White House, China uses Pelosi’s trip as a pretext to intimidate and undermine Taiwan’s resistance and warn of a possible miscalculation involving military pressure against the province.
Beijing, for its part, accuses the US of throwing mud on China and adopting what it calls “empty rhetoric and hegemonic logic” towards the province.
On Thursday, China’s embassy in Washington spokesman Liu Pengyu vowed that Beijing would take unspecified “resolute countermeasures” in response to what he called a “provocation” by the US.
“The visit once again proves that the US does not want to see stability in the Taiwan Strait and has spared no effort to provoke clashes between the two sides and interfere in China’s internal affairs,” it said in a statement.
Since Pelosi landed in the province earlier this month, China has responded with record military deployments around the island — which have included firing 16 ballistic missiles toward Taiwan — as well as suspending diplomatic communications with the United States.
