TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A delegation of U.S. lawmakers met with the head of Taiwan’s legislature on Monday as part of a five-day visit to the self-governing island that comes as U.S.-China relations remain strained after weeks of commercial charges on a spy balloon.
The delegation that arrived on Sunday includes Representatives Ro Khanna of California, Tony Gonzales of Texas, Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts and Jonathan Jackson of Illinois.
They are expected to meet President Tsai Ing-wen as well as businessmen. On Monday, they held talks with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company founder Morris Chang, considered the father of the island’s chip industry.
Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley, said he was in Taiwan to learn more about the island’s role in the semiconductor industry. Khanna and Auchincloss are both members of the new House Select Committee focused on competition with China.
He spoke of the implicit threat to their visit, as China opposes any form of exchange between Taiwan and foreign governments. China claims the island as part of its territory to be united by force if necessary, and has stepped up military and diplomatic harassment of Taiwan.
“Our efforts to come here are in no way provocative of China, but consistent with the President’s foreign policy which recognizes the importance of the relationship as Taiwan, while ultimately seeking peace in the region,” he said. said Khanna.
The head of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, You Si-kun, used the speech to hit back at Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s top foreign policy official, who said this weekend at the Munich Conference on security that Taiwan “has never been a country and it will not be a country in the future.
“China ignores historical facts and claims to have sovereignty over Taiwan. Taiwan has already become an independent sovereign nation…Taiwan has never been ruled by the People’s Republic of China for a single day,” You said.
The delegation’s visit follows a sensitive trip by a senior Pentagon official on Friday, reported by the Financial Times.
A Pentagon spokesperson did not comment on the visit of Michael Chase, China’s Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, repeating that “our commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the region”. The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said it had no information about such a visit.
Tensions between the US and China rose again last month after Washington accused Beijing of sending a spy balloon down over the US East Coast and Secretary of State Antony Blinken quashed a trip to Beijing. Blinken also said over the weekend that the United States is concerned that China is supplying arms to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
Associated Press video producer Johnson Lai contributed to this report.
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