Taiwanese president visits United States and Central America

Tsai Ing-wen will take a ten-day trip from March 29 to April 7 that will take her to New York, Los Angeles and Guatemala City, among other places. On her way to the official destination of Guatemala, she will pass through New York and on the way back she will fly to Los Angeles, where she will arrive on April 5. It is not known who she meets in the United States. Some media outlets suggest she is meeting with Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy.

It is not uncommon for a Taiwanese leader to visit the United States on trips to Latin American countries that recognize Taiwan as an independent state. The United States does not, but is Taiwan’s main supporter and arms supplier. High-level consultations often take place when a Taiwanese president makes “stopovers”.

Acknowledgement

However, there are hardly any countries left that do not recognize the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan. Honduras, a neighboring country of Guatemala, has just ended its relations with Taiwan and is in the process of establishing relations with the People’s Republic. Currently, only a few island states in the Caribbean, Pacific, Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay, and Vatican City recognize Taiwan as the Republic of China, as Taiwan is officially called. Beijing claims the de facto independent island as part of China and vehemently opposes international recognition of Taiwan as an independent country.

After the Communist takeover of China in 1949, many opponents of the Communists fled to the island where they established what they believed to be a legitimate Chinese government. The United States has long supported this position, and so it was not until 1971 that the United Nations recognized and admitted the People’s Republic as a member. In 1950, the Netherlands was one of the first Western countries to recognize the communist People’s Republic as a state.