By Riyaz ul Khaliq
ISTANBUL (AA) - The people of Taiwan “have the right to engage” with the world, regional leader William Lai Ching-te said Friday as he wrapped up his first overseas trip since being inaugurated in May.
“Exchanges with the international community to foster greater understanding and cooperation ... should not be treated as an act of provocation by an authoritarian regime,” Lai told reporters in Palau, his third and last stop of a three-nation tour he began last Saturday.
Lai visited the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau and spent three nights in the US territories of Hawaii and Guam.
Calling on Beijing to “return to the rule-based international order, Lai said: “Rather than raising their fists, (Beijing) should open their arms,” Focus Taiwan reported.
Taipei has warned that Beijing might launch military drills in response to Lai’s trip.
China calls Taiwan its “breakaway province” while Taipei has insisted on independence since 1949.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said: “The separatist activities of the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist forces and the connivance and support from external forces are the greatest threats to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits.”
Lai and Democratic Progressive Party authorities have “consistently used various pretexts to promote ‘Taiwan independence’ separatism,” he said. “Regardless of what they say or do, they cannot change the fact that Taiwan is a part of China, nor can they stop the historical trend that China will be and must be reunified. The attempt to rely on external forces for independence is doomed to fail.”
The number of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies has dwindled to 12 as Taipei lost three during the term of Lai’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen.
The Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Nauru shifted relations to Beijing, reiterating the one-China principle, referencing UN Resolution 2758.
Nauru severed ties with Taipei two days after Lai was elected in January.
Lai held telephone and video calls with US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson as well as Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Republican Sen. Roger Wicker during his stay in Hawaii and Guam,
As he prepared to return home, Lai said his island nation’s ties with its “international friends” were “rock solid.”
While the US has not publicly shifted from the one-China principle, engagements between Washington and Taipei have grown in recent years.
The US has supplied arms and weaponry worth billions of dollars to the island nation as well as its officers are training Taiwanese soldiers.