US denies change to ‘one China’ policy after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s speech in California
Beijing says it lodged an official protest with Washington over Tsai’s speech in Los Angeles, where she said Taiwan’s freedom was not negotiable
US President Donald Trump’s administration denied Tuesday any change to its “one China” policy after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen made a political speech in the United States, the first time in 15 years a Taiwanese leader has done so.
Beijing said it had lodged an official protest with the US over Tsai’s speech in Los Angeles on Monday, when she said Taiwan’s freedom and future was not negotiable.
Tsai spoke at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library while in transit on a trip to Paraguay and Belize, two of the few countries that continue to recognise the government in Taipei.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the speech did not represent any move by the Trump administration to alter the official US stance that accepted Beijing as the sole government of China, and did not officially recognise Taiwan’s government.
“Our policy on Taiwan has not changed,” she said.
“The United States in regard to this trip facilitates from time to time representatives of the Taiwan authorities to transit the United States.
“Those are largely undertaken out of consideration for the safety and the comfort of those travellers, and that is in keeping with our One China policy.”
Yet previous US administrations have prevented Taiwanese leaders from making speeches in the United States that would implicitly elevate their diplomatic status and irk Beijing.