Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te will be stopping in the U.S. state of Hawaii en route to three diplomatic allies in the Pacific. TaiwanPlus talks with Mihai Sora of the Lowy Institue to discuss the political tensions of his planned layover and the diplomatic opportunities for Taiwan as he visits Palau, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00We now know that President Lai will make a transit in Hawaii.
00:05What is the significance of this being a transit instead of a stop?
00:09An official stop for the Taiwanese president could be very provocative for the Chinese.
00:17China has a policy of discouraging, where it can, any such official interaction.
00:23So calling it a transit or, in effect, having a transit rather than an official meeting
00:28is a way to accommodate that level of political interaction without provoking a counter-reaction
00:36from official Chinese sources.
00:40How do the current political tensions compare to when President Tsai Ing-wen made her transits
00:45in the United States?
00:47It's a mixed picture in a sense that on the one hand you have very recent high-level interactions
00:52between Jake Sullivan and Chinese counterparts.
00:58That's on the one track.
00:59On the other track, of course, we see an escalation in Chinese provocations in contexts such as
01:05the South China Sea, certainly looming as a backdrop over this visit and over foreign
01:11policy for the next couple of years will be incoming US President Donald Trump and his
01:18own positions on China, on Taiwan and other regional points of friction.
01:23So I'd say this is an important visit.
01:26The transit stop will be an important occasion to discuss with a like-minded country, regional
01:32and global security.
01:34Following his transit in Hawaii, President Lai will continue to the Marshall Islands,
01:38Palau and Tuvalu.
01:40What sort of diplomatic confidences might Taiwan be able to give to these nations during
01:46this trip?
01:47Well, Taiwan has a very, it's a small scale, but a very effective program of bilateral
01:53development cooperation in these three countries.
01:58Taiwan has strengths in providing technical capacity building programs in health, in agriculture.
02:05In this case, we're seeing a thematic focus on maritime domain awareness.
02:11So perhaps the president will be in a position to offer additional Taiwanese resources for
02:17these Pacific countries to police or to manage their marine resources and to improve their
02:24maritime domain awareness.
02:27It's these sorts of development activities that add ballast to that relationship.
02:33Of course, the key significance is the political nature of it, that Taiwan is sending the highest
02:39political representative.
02:42It's not a trip that a Taiwanese president makes very often.
02:46So maintaining that political relationship with his peers is very important.