Taiwan is a key force for promoting global peace and stability, President William Lai (賴清德) said as he left for Hawaii yesterday as part of a Pacific tour, thanking the US for allowing him to stop over.
China has been stepping up military pressure against Taiwan.
Security sources told Reuters that Beijing might stage military exercises to coincide with Lai’s Pacific tour, which includes stopovers in Hawaii and Guam, a US territory.
Photo: Ann Wang, Reuters
In a speech shortly before take-off, Lai thanked the US government for “helping to make this trip a smooth one.”
“This trip is the beginning of a new era of values-based diplomacy,” he said. “Democracy, prosperity and peace are the expectations of the people of Taiwan, and they are also the values that I, as president, must actively promote.”
“I will continue to expand cooperation and deepen our partnership with our allies and friends based on the values of democracy, peace, and prosperity, so that the world can see that Taiwan is not only a model of democracy, but also a key force in promoting global peace, stability and prosperity,” he added.
Taiwan deployed F-16 jets to escort the Taiwan-flagged China Airlines plane carrying Lai and his delegation.
Lai was to stop in Hawaii for the first two nights before going to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, three of the 12 countries that have formal diplomatic ties with Taipei.
Taiwanese presidents often make use of what are officially only stopovers in the US to meet friendly politicians and give speeches.
Such stopovers are typically on visits to far-flung allies in the Pacific, Latin America or the Caribbean.
Hawaii and Guam are home to major US military bases.
A few hours before Lai’s departure, the US announced a new arms sale package for Taiwan, of spare parts for F-16 jets and radars for an estimated US$385 million.
China on Friday urged Washington to exercise “utmost caution” in its relations with Taiwan.
The US Department of State said it saw no justification for what it called a private, routine and unofficial transit by Lai to be used by Beijing as a pretext for provocation.
This is Lai’s first foreign trip since taking office in May. He is scheduled to return to Taiwan on Friday.
Additional reporting by AFP
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS