Taiwan President Lai Ching-te's stopover in Hawaii, where he's playing up cultural connections, has been met with condemnation from China's Taiwan Affairs Office.
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00:00Taiwan's President Lai Ching-de is wrapping up the first full day of his Pacific trip
00:06with a banquet for Taiwan's overseas community here in Honolulu, Hawaii. It's been a busy
00:12day for Lai. He's been pushing his country's soft power. But the message from Taiwan and
00:17its friends here is we are all part of the Indo-Pacific and we're stronger together.
00:23In the run-up to this trip, China has been painting Lai as stirring tensions and saying
00:27that the U.S. is playing with fire by allowing him to visit and that this could be seen as
00:32supporting Taiwan independence, a red line for Beijing. But Lai has maintained that Taiwan
00:37has the right to go out in the world and that it is a force for good, something he's put
00:43into practice at the start of this trip.
00:46The Hawaii state flag also represents the closer and stronger ties that Taiwan and Hawaii
00:53will share moving forward. With our shared astronation heritage, we are like family.
01:04Lai visited the region's biggest museum, highlighting Taiwan's connection to the Pacific, and he
01:08also shared Taiwan's disaster response experiences and skills at Hawaii's Emergency Operations
01:14Center.
01:15Both Hawaii and Taiwan are also beautiful islands that face challenges from natural
01:23disasters, and I look forward to deepening our exchanges in various areas.
01:31By reviving and strengthening cultural connections and by showing its friends and allies firsthand
01:37how it can help, Lai is helping to turn Beijing's narrative that he's a regional troublemaker
01:43on its head.
01:44John Su and Rick Lowatt in Honolulu, Hawaii, for Taiwan Plus.