Taipei, Taiwan:
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, will pay a visit to Taiwan subsequent week for meetings with senior Taiwanese leaders, Taiwan’s government and the U.S. mission to the U.N. stated, prompting China to warn they had been playing with fire.
Beijing, which claims the self-governed island as its personal territory, has been angered by stepped-up help for Taiwan from the outgoing Trump administration, like trips to Taipei by major U.S. officials, additional straining Sino-U.S. ties.
Chinese fighter jets approached the island in August and September in the course of the final two visits – by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Keith Krach, respectively.
“During her trip, the Ambassador will reinforce the U.S. government’s strong and ongoing support for Taiwan’s international space in accord with the U.S. one-China policy that is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three U.S.-PRC joint communiques, and the Six Assurances to Taiwan,” the U.S. mission to the United Nations stated in a statement on Thursday.
She will be in Taiwan from Jan. 13 to 15, it added.
While the United States, like most nations, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, it is the island’s strongest international backer and arms supplier, becoming obliged to support provide Taiwan with the implies to defend itself below the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
China stated it was firmly opposed to the pay a visit to.
“We wish to remind the United States that whoever plays with fire will burn himself. The United States will pay a heavy price for its wrong action,” China’s U.N. mission stated.
“China strongly urges the United States to stop its crazy provocation, stop creating new difficulties for China-U.S. relations and the two countries’ cooperation in the United Nations, and stop going further on the wrong path.”
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry stated on Friday that Craft, whom it known as a “staunch friend”, would meet President Tsai Ing-wen and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.
The pay a visit to is very symbolic as Taiwan is not a U.N. member, for the reason that of objections by China, which views the island as 1 of its provinces and not a nation, and that only Beijing has a correct to speak for Taiwan on the international stage.
Taiwan says that correct belongs to its democratically elected government, not China, and has complained of Chinese stress stopping it from getting real-time information and facts from the World Health Organization in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Craft will most likely bring up that challenge.
The U.S. mission stated that when in Taipei she would give a speech on “Taiwan’s impressive contributions to the global community and the importance of Taiwan’s meaningful and expanded participation in international organisations”.
In a September post on Twitter, she known as for Taiwan’s “full participation at the UN”, following a meeting with Taiwan’s de facto consul common in New York.
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