Warm, high-profile welcome for Taiwanese president in the United States
Tsai Ing-wen invokes late US leader Ronald Reagan in rebuff to military and diplomatic pressure from Beijing
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen underscored her administration’s focus on “freedom and democracy” during her two-day stopover in the United States, shrugging off mounting pressure from Beijing to return to its fold.
Addressing supporters and US officials at the Berlin Wall monument at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library just outside Los Angeles on Monday, Tsai quoted the late American president, saying: “Everything is negotiable except two things: our freedom and our future.”
Beijing sees Taiwan as a wayward province subject to eventual union, by force if necessary, and has ramped up pressure on Tsai to accept the “one China” principle, an understanding that there is only one China but each side has its own interpretation of what that means.
Beijing considers the understanding the foundation for any cross-strait talks but, unlike her predecessor Ma Ying-jeou, Tsai has resisted going down that path since she became president in May 2016.
As a result, Beijing has held a series military exercises near the island, wooed away four of Taipei’s allies, and pressured international airlines to not refer to the self-ruled island as a non-Chinese territory.
