China Responds to Tsai’s US Visit

PLUS: Lessons from past Taiwanese presidential visits

On Wednesday, March 29, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 landed in New York. She was promptly greeted by an entourage of diplomats, including American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chair Laura Rosenberger and Taiwan Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim 蕭美琴. The next day, she toured a number of Taiwan-friendly businesses in New York, quietly met with US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and then received the Hudson Institute’s Global Leadership Award.

By April 1, Tsai was in Guatemala. She is slated to return to Taiwan via Los Angeles — but Tsai will not be giving a formal address at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, as was previously reported. And according to Bloomberg, in Los Angeles Tsai will meet with a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by US House Representative Mike Gallagher, as well as several tech and entertainment executives.

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The PRC’s official government organs and netizen commentariat have been busy.

The Official Line

From the Taiwan Affairs Office 国台办, spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian 朱凤莲 gave a statement on March 29:

DPP authorities, out of their political self-interest in scheming for “independence,” have manufactured various excuses and taken advantage of various opportunities to engage in “independence” activities. The so-called “transit” [过境] of the Taiwanese leader is a provocative action which, fundamentally, seeks independence by relying on America [倚美谋独], attempting to create “one China, one Taiwan,” “two China,” etc. violations of the one China principle. It is also an opportunity to peddle the Taiwan independence viewpoint on the international stage and seek the support of American anti-China forces. Tsai Ing-wen’s “transit” is not [merely] a layover or hotel stop, but rather, by using various labels, is a way to contact US government officials and members of Congress, conduct US-Taiwan official discourse, and collude with external anti-China forces. If she engages with US Speaker McCarthy, it would be yet another serious violation of the one China principle and harm China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, [as well as being] a provocation that disrupts peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. We resolutely oppose this, and will inevitably adopt firm measures to fight back.

The next day, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning 毛宁 said,

The Chinese side resolutely opposes any form of US-Taiwan government intercourse; resolutely opposes the leader of the Taiwan region — under any name or for any reason — running away to America [窜美]; resolutely opposes any official contact between the US government and the Taiwan side. … [The US and Taiwan’s “collusion”] proves yet again that the root cause of the new round of tension in the Taiwan Strait is the Taiwan authorities’ repeated attempts to seek independence via relying on America [倚美谋独], as well as [exposes] that some on the American side deliberately promote “using Taiwan to control China” [以台制华].

The same day, March 30, Huang Ping 黄屏, the Chinese Consul General in New York, wrote,

The Chinese people have the right to ask: Why does the American side, regarding the Ukraine issue, yak about respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity, but when it comes to China’s Taiwan issue [the US] doesn’t respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity? Why [does the US] demand China not provide weapons to Russia, while for a long time — [and] in violation of the August 17 Communique — [they have] sold arms to Taiwan? Why [does the US] say again and again to safeguard regional peace and stability, while simultaneously secretly formulating a so-called “destroy Taiwan” plan? [Ed. Such a plan was fake news — see Chris Horton’s excellent coverage of the saga.]

… If Speaker McCarthy doesn’t learn the lesson from previous Speaker Pelosi’s mistakes and ignores the international community’s broad support for the one China principle, [he] will undoubtedly make the same mistake again [重蹈覆辙] and further damage [the US-PRC] relationship.

And finally, on Friday, March 31, Mao Ning 毛宁 gave another press conference, where she repeated the usual before adding:

The fact is, this once again proves that the “transit” of Taiwan authorities and its leader to America is a sham — [they] are, in reality, seeking a “breakthrough” [突破] and publicizing “Taiwan independence.” What I want to emphasize: no matter what the Taiwan authorities say or do, it will not change the reality that Taiwan is a part of China. No one, no force can stop China from fulfilling unification.

TV: The Ukraine War Is Complicating US-China Dynamics

Liu Heping 刘和平, a politician and commentator from Jiangxi, appeared on a televised interview with Direct News 直新闻 on March 30. He largely credited Tsai’s coming to the US — instead of a repeat of l’affaire Pelosi — to Chinese pressure. He also submitted that the Ukraine war has made the US more measured in its dealings with the PRC, lest the US drive Russia and the PRC even closer together

Except for its ability to control House Speaker McCarthy’s and Secretary of State Blinken’s actions, the Biden administration, with regard to behavior within its own purview, has generally maintained restraint.

Clearly, this is the result of China exerting pressure on the US. … In my opinion, the reason the Biden administration listened to the Chinese side’s urging on this matter is: on the one hand, [the US] is very scrupulous [about the] China-US-Russia trilateral relationship — because the current trilateral relationship is in an extremely delicate state, the American side is worried that provoking China on the Taiwan issue too much would allow for the China-Russia relationship to break through their relative mutual restraint. And on the other hand, the reason is because [the US] is scrupulous about the Russia-Ukraine situation: the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already reached a critical point — Ukraine is in the process of launching a massive counteroffensive, and 300,000 NATO troops are keeping pressure on the border; at this critical moment, the American side does not want to see a sudden change in the situation in the Taiwan Strait, and [the US] wants even less to see the Ukraine crisis and the Taiwan Strait create a chain reaction.

… I think that Tsai Ing-wen’s mentality as she “transits” the US is panic-stricken [胆颤心惊], as if walking on thin ice [如履薄冰]. This, on the one hand, is due to today’s international macro circumstances — that is, for the US right now, nothing is more important or pressing than dealing with the Ukraine crisis. And Tsai Ing-wen knows, at this moment, that the US holds a “the less trouble the better” [多一事不如少一事] mentality and does not want to invite trouble on the Taiwan issue. Therefore, [the US] is not very likely to give [Tsai] too much of a “courteous reception” [礼遇].

In the pan-Blue (ie. the coalition more supportive of closer Taiwan-mainland ties) Taiwanese newspaper China Times 中國時報, Tang Shaocheng 湯紹成, a researcher at National Chengchi University in Taipei, echoed some of Liu’s sentiments about how the war in Ukraine is complicating the US-China relationship. Even so, Tang doesn’t believe, as Liu does, that the US is necessarily the one succumbing to pressure here:

The “Tsai-McCarthy meeting” may put the US in the middle of a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, they think that the importance of mainland China is increasing, and [thus the US] obviously must degrade Taiwan’s role — even visits like Tsai Ing-wen’s, in order to get through them safely, [the US] would demand Taiwan’s cooperation. Taiwan has no choice but to cooperate completely.

From this “Tsai-McCarthy meeting,” it can be seen that the US’s power to suppress the Chinese side is actually extremely strong, including via chip war, playing the Taiwan card, and other various means. However, the situation today has already changed: the American side knows how intense [the situation is], and if the Ukraine war continues to worsen, [the US] fears running into further difficulties over there. Moreover, Russian president Putin also said, “The use of nuclear weapons is not impossible.”

Reporting for Shenzhen TV 深圳卫视, He Wang Ziyu 何王子彧 noted,

At the dinner [on March 29], Tsai Ing-wen took the initiative to mention TSMC establishing a factory in Arizona. She said the fact that more countries want to cooperate with Taiwan “illustrates that Taiwan is becoming increasingly important in the world.” In addition to this, she also mentioned the so-called “US support for Taiwan’s strengthened defensive capabilities,” and that the Biden administration during its term in office has on nine occasions announced arms sales to Taiwan, fulfilling its “security commitments” and so forth to Taiwan. Tsai Ing-wen said, “The safer Taiwan is, the safer the world is.”

Some scholars on the island have pointed out that Tsai Ing-wen put “Taiwan security” and “global security” together, in an attempt to “sell misery for sympathy” [卖惨] — but don’t forget that Taiwan’s security predicament is just the result of the DPP’s refusal to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus, as well as the “Taiwan independence” troublemaking it brings about. The Taiwanese [understand] clearly that “the mainland is close, America is very far away” — and because of this, their most pressing concern is actually not to seek protection by clinging to a powerful America [抱美国大腿].

The Public Commentariat

The broader online community has engaged in the kind of sardonic sparring we all expected. Sina Military 新浪军事 compiled some comments, some of which Sina claims were written by Taiwanese netizens:

Regarding the so-called “Global Leadership Award” given to Tsai Ing-wen at the US Hudson Institute, some island netizens sarcastically said: “How much did that cost?”

One netizen said, “This is a farce!”

Some netizens said sarcastically, “Tsai Ing-wen had a great time traveling to the US … at public expense.”

On Sohu 搜狐, a user called 军事评论 wrote,

Although the Taiwan authorities really tried to create the illusion that [Tsai’s] trip was welcome, [the receiving crowd] was unable to conceal the truth. Outside the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, where Tsai Ing-wen was staying, a large number of protestors gathered — most of them were overseas Chinese from the mainland.

From the photos at the scene, eye-catching slogans can be seen — such as “support Chinese unification,” “support the opposition to Taiwan independence,” as well as signs denouncing Tsai Ing-wen as a big Han traitor. Five-star red flags were all over the area — [the protestors’] momentum was huge.

You can watch the video of Tsai’s arrival here. There were maybe three dozen protestors, many from Fujian, stationed outside her hotel (albeit possibly after her arrival), shouting phrases such as, “Tsai Ing-wen is a sinner to the entire Chinese nation,” “Taiwan belongs to China,” and, “We fully support peaceful reunification; we are totally against Taiwan Independence.”

PRC state media had a field day with a very special American: Caleb Maupin, the founder and self-proclaimed “ideological leader” of the Center for Political Innovation. He and the CPI held a protest in Manhattan — with banners and megaphones — which was covered extensively (and exclusively) by China Daily. Maupin is filmed saying, “There’s only one China — that’s the US law. Tsai Ing-wen is here to sell a war, and we Americans don’t want that war.” I mean, kudos to China Daily: they found a hardcore United Front white guy! Indeed, the Center for Political Innovation is totally a United Front organization, often hosting lectures about, say, the virtues of Chinese socialism. (It became Reddit famous this past August when it flew pro-Putin flags at a conference.)

The pro-Taiwan netizens have had no shortage of sparring, either. For instance, in response to an anti-Taiwan protest video, one netizen wrote, “New York little pinks — why don’t you send your children to the PLA?” Other Taiwanese netizens wrote things like:

If they really support the motherland ~ why did they come to live in the US?

When Chinese patriotism is your job, but you live an American life…

Wang Dan 王丹, a leader during the 1989 Tiananmen protests who’s now based in the US, mocked anti-Tsai protestors who miswrote the idiom 數典忘祖 — which means (roughly) to forget one’s ancestors — as 忘典數祖:

Everyone who protested President Tsai Ing-wen’s transit in New York: can you help me not feel so humiliated? It’s 數典忘祖, not 忘典數祖 … even using Chinese incorrectly — you are really “forgetting your ancestors”!

A Brief History of Taiwan Presidential Visits to the US

After the Financial Times broke the news that Tsai would visit McCarthy on American soil, the Twittersphere exploded with comparisons to then–Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui’s 李登輝 June 1995 visit to Cornell University, which in part precipitated the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. Yet Taiwanese presidents, KMT and DPP, have visited the United States dozens of times since the 1990s. Moreover, like Lee Teng-hui, Tsai Ing-wen has given a speech on US soil while in office (and without provoking a full-blown Taiwan Strait crisis).

Also, as a side note: try asking ChatGPT or Bard when a sitting Taiwanese president has visited the US. They’re not gold-star research companions quite yet.

May 1994 marked the first time a sitting Taiwan president had traveled to the US since diplomatic relations between the US and PRC were established in 1979. Lee’s plane landed in Honolulu for refueling — although, here we wouldn’t say that Lee “stepped on US soil,” since he refused to get off the plane! The Los Angeles Times reported,

Lee, furious because the Clinton administration had refused to let him spend a night on American soil, sat fuming inside the Taiwan-owned Boeing 747. Wearing a sweater and slippers, he refused even to disembark for the reception the U.S. government had set up in a dingy transit lounge at Hickam Air Force Base.

And according to The Washington Post, “‘I can’t get too close to the door of the plane,’ Lee said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I might slip and enter America.’”

June 1995: Lee’s infamous trip to Cornell, his alma mater, where he spoke at commencement on Taiwan’s experience in democratization. The PRC’s response kicked off the Third Taiwan Straits Crisis.

May 2001: Chen Shui-bian 陳水扁 had a two-day stopover in New York, where he met with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani and twenty-two members of Congress. Chen traveled through Houston on his return to Taiwan. A PRC spokesperson responded here.

August/September 2004: Chen transited through Honolulu on the way to Panama and Belize, and returned to Taiwan via Seattle. A Chinese Academy of Military Science affiliate, Sun Dangen, wrote for China Daily that Chen was practicing “transit diplomacy.” (Ping pong diplomacy, hostage diplomacy, palace diplomacy — so many types of diplomacy.)

January 2007: En route to Nicaragua, Chen stopped in San Francisco, where he met with then–AIT Chair Raymond Burghardt; returning to Taiwan, he stopped in Los Angeles for refueling. An AIT spokesperson said, “We understand President Chen’s activities will be private and unofficial, consistent with the purposes of a transit.”

August 2007: On his “Trip of Joint Grand Vision and Eternal Concern,” Chen stopped over in Anchorage for a few hours before departing for Central America. The US didn’t allow Chen to disembark from the plane — which accompanying DPP lawmakers rebranded as a voluntary “silent protest” against the US. The press release from Chen’s office, however, conveyed no such hard feelings:

President Chen expressed his regret that AIT Honorary Chairman [William] Brown had to be inconvenienced to meet him in the wee hours of the morning and that the transit stop was so short. He expressed his appreciation to Honorary Chairman Brown for greeting him and also thanked the United States government for making arrangements so his plane could stop and refuel in Alaska. Honorary Chairman Brown told President Chen that when he stops in Alaska on his journey back to Taiwan, AIT Board Chairman Raymond Burghardt will personally be on hand to greet him. President Chen once again expressed his appreciation.

Chen returned to Taiwan through Anchorage a week later. [Thanks to Kharis Templeman for flagging this one!]

May 2009: Ma Ying-jeou 馬英九 stopped in Los Angeles on his way to, and Seattle on his way from, a Central America trip.

August 2013: Ma stopped in New York on his way to the Dominican Republic and Paraguay. During his forty-hour visit, according to the South China Morning Post,

Ma engaged in a series of activities carrying diplomatic significance, such as having breakfast with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and meeting US Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and ranking committee member Eliot Engel.

He also visited the site of the September 11 attacks in New York, toured the campus of his alma mater New York University, and met business executives and representatives from Chinese-American communities.

Ma returned to Taiwan via Los Angeles.

January 2014: Ma visited Los Angeles’s Chinatown, where he was greeted by “hundreds of flag-waving supporters.” Also while there, Taiwan Representative to the US King Pu-tsung 金溥聰 and AIT Chair Burghardt boarded Ma’s plane to welcome him to the States.

June 2014: On the way to Panama, Ma stopped in Hawaii. AIT Chair Burghardt boarded his plane there as well.

July 2015: Ma visited Boston and his alma mater, Harvard Law School, before traveling to the Caribbean. AIT Chair Burghard and Taiwan Representative to the US Shen Lyu-shun 沈呂巡 met Ma on the tarmac. While in Boston, Ma met with HLS faculty Jerome A. Cohen, William P. Alford, and Mark Wu, as well as former Taiwan Premier Jiang Yi-huah 江宜樺, then a visiting scholar at Harvard. He returned to Taiwan via Los Angeles.

March 2016: Near the end of his second term as president, Ma visited Houston — about which he said, “The last place where we had not yet made a transit stop was the southern US, so this time, we intentionally chose Houston” — and Los Angeles.

June/July 2016: Barely a month into her presidency, Tsai Ing-wen visited Miami en route to Paraguay. She was greeted by AIT Managing Director Joe Donovan, and then headed to a photo op with Senator Marco Rubio. Later she met with Taiwanese Miami Marlins pitcher Chen Wei-yin 陳偉殷 and attended a dinner banquet with 300 Taiwanese expats. And as reported by her office,

President Tsai attended a breakfast meeting with four members of the US House of Representatives including Congressman Brad Sherman, Congressman Mike Honda, Congresswoman Mimi Walters, and Congressman Scott Peters, California State Treasurer John Chiang, and American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond F. Burghardt.

On the way back to Taiwan, she spent the night in Los Angeles.

January 2017: Tsai transited through Houston en route to Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Senator Ted Cruz met with Tsai, where they discussed “arms sales, diplomatic exchanges and economic relations.” While in Houston, she visited its Museum of Fine Arts, “a Formosa Plastics Corp 台灣塑膠 facility in Point Comfort,” and “a Nan Ya Plastics Corp 南亞塑膠 facility in Wharton.” The PRC’s displeasure was much more pronounced before and during her Houston visit, in part because then-president-elect Donald Trump had spoken by phone with Tsai the month prior.

August 2018: During a trip to Paraguay and Belize, Tsai visited Los Angeles and Houston. In Los Angeles, Tsai gave a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and met with three California lawmakers. According to her office, Tsai was accompanied by US New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez during the trip.

March 2019: Tsai stopped in Hawaii on the way home from a trip to several Pacific islands. A US State Department spokesperson said that Tsai’s transit was consistent with “consideration for the safety, comfort, convenience, and dignity of the traveler.” While in Hawaii, Tsai was greeted by AIT Chair James Moriarty.

July 2019: On her “Journey of Freedom, Democracy, and Sustainability,” Tsai visited and participated in extensive activities in New York: attending a Taiwan-US Business Summit, giving a speech at Columbia Law School, sharing prepared remarks with members of Congress, dining with Taiwanese expats in New York, and strolling Manhattan’s Central Park with young Taiwanese Americans. She returned to Taiwan through Denver, where she also attended an expat banquet.

And now, March/April 2023 marks Tsai’s seventh time coming to the US during her presidency.

To be sure, the above list is almost certainly incomplete. For example, Senator Rubio’s staff reported that, “According to the Taiwanese, [Tsai’s 2016 visit to Miami] was the first meeting on U.S. soil between a sitting U.S. Senator and a sitting Taiwanese President since 2003” — yet I can find no record of a meeting between Chen Shui-bian and a US senator in 2003. Please let me know if you find more, so I can update the list!

What are we to make of Taiwan presidents’ relatively frequent stops to the US — are they useful or dangerous?

Stanford professor Oriana Skylar Mastro, speaking in January of this year at the Yomiuri International Forum in Japan, put it this way:

I wrote some op-eds for The New York Times when Nancy Pelosi went to Taiwan, when President Biden makes statements about defending Taiwan — “if this just upsets China and does not improve our military prospects at all, I do not support it.”

But when we were in Taiwan, I had a bit of a change of heart, because what we learned from senior leaders in Taiwan is they felt like those political maneuvers increase the morale of the people of Taiwan to fight — and we do need the people of Taiwan to be able to hold off. So there seems to be some tradeoffs.

I agree. The relationship between the US and Taiwan needs to be laser-focused on hard deterrence — and there’s a strong case to be made that high-profile delegations increase the confidence and determination of the Taiwanese people to stand strong. Obviously some tact is required: American and Taiwanese diplomats should find the optimal level and frequency of delegations, pissing off the CCP as little as possible while boosting the morale of the Taiwanese as much as possible.

And finding the sweet spot shouldn’t be that hard to do. After all, the PRC’s talking points on Taiwan presidential visits to the US have barely changed in nearly thirty years, and Taiwan has a robust system of public opinion polling which measures all kinds of things: Taiwanese vs. Chinese identity, unification vs. independence leanings, the will to fight with or without American assistance, and so on.

Stay tuned for updates after Los Angeles!