China: Stopping Taiwanese Presidential Frontrunner from Visiting U.S. Is Top ‘Priority’

Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng said on Thursday the regime in Beijing considers it a “priority” to block Taiwanese presidential frontrunner William Lai from visiting the U.S. as scheduled next month.

Xie complained at the Aspen Security Forum that Taiwanese “separatists” are recruiting support from the United States to thwart the peaceful “reunification” China desires.

“They even do not admit they are Chinese. So this is a very dangerous path they are taking,” he said of these Taiwanese “separatists.”

“Now the priority for us is to stop Lai Ching-te from visiting the United States, which is like a gray rhino charging at us,” Xie said, using William Lai’s full Chinese name.

“Gray rhino” is a figure of speech for an obvious threat that has been ignored for too long. The phrase is commonly used to describe China’s three most obvious problems at the moment: a declining population, rapidly mounting debt, and other countries seeking to diversify their supply chains away from China.

Lai, who is currently vice president of Taiwan, is leading the pack in most polls to succeed President Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai, first elected in 2016, is serving her second and last term. The next presidential election will be held in January. 

Lai was formerly mayor of Tainan and won re-election to that position with a record-shattering 72.9% of the vote in 2014, but he was then unsuccessful in challenging Tsai for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential nomination in 2019. He joined her ticket as vice president in that election and has held the post ever since. Tsai has indicated he is her chosen successor.

Lai’s politics are interesting because he is even more independence-minded than Tsai, and China has been waging an all-out diplomatic war against Taiwan ever since she was elected. Lai described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence” in 2017 but has since moderated his position somewhat and says he wishes to “strengthen Taiwan” rather than push for outright independence.

Lai is planning to visit one of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies, Paraguay, on August 15 to attend the inauguration of President-Elect Santiago Peña, a former International Monetary Fund economist who won a commanding victory in the May election. Peña said he intends to preserve diplomatic relations with Taiwan despite pressure from China, which is an alluring market for Paraguay’s agricultural industry.

China was infuriated when Lai indicated on Monday he would make a stopover in the United States, although his itinerary has not been fixed yet. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Monday:

China firmly opposes any form of official exchanges between the United States and Taiwan, resolutely opposes sneaky visits by Taiwan independence separatists in any name or for any reason, and resolutely opposes any form of connivance by the United States to support Taiwan independence separatists.

Beijing was similarly agitated when Tsai stopped in the United States and visited with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in Los Angeles in April. The Chinese held provocative military drills around Taiwan to express their anger at Tsai’s stopover.

The Joe Biden administration became visibly nervous after Lai said at a July 10 campaign event, “When the president of Taiwan can enter the White House, the political goal we are pursuing will have been achieved.”

U.S. officials on Friday asked the Taiwanese government to clarify Lai’s remarks, which represent a challenge to longstanding U.S. policy against senior Taiwanese officials paying visits to Washington. 

“They considered it as something very different from what we have been saying and asked if . . . Lai will be coming out with more surprises,” a senior Taiwanese official told the Financial Times on Friday.