US and China in 'frequent, clear and candid' dialogues on Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen's visit, American envoy says

American officials' "frequent, clear and candid" dialogues with counterparts in Beijing on Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's visit should help temper mainland China's response, a senior State Department diplomat said on Thursday.

Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, also expected a "smooth and successful" transit of the United States by the island's leader.

He made the comment after Tsai landed in New York on Wednesday local time. She is expected to stay two nights before heading to Guatemala on Saturday as part of a 10-day trip that will also include Belize, another Central American ally.

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On her way back to Taiwan, Tsai is due to stop over in Los Angeles for two nights starting on April 4, where she is expected to meet US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Against a backdrop of high tensions between the US and China, "frequent communications" are taking place between Washington and Beijing regarding Tsai's visit and a range of other issues, Kritenbrink told a press conference on Thursday.

"We've had clear and candid exchanges as we often do on issues related to the Taiwan Strait," he said.

"I think both sides understand one another's position well," he told reporters, noting that he had spoken frequently about Tsai's stopover with his Chinese counterparts.

Tsai's current travel was consistent with long-standing US practice, he reiterated. "It is a routine, private and unofficial transit, and there is no reason for [China] or anyone else to overreact to it," he said multiple times during his briefing.

"I am confident that President Tsai is going to have a smooth and successful transit of the United States," Kritenbrink added.

The senior American diplomat anticipated that Tsai would have an opportunity to engage with various members of the US Congress, similar to her schedule during previous visits.

"The US approach to the PRC, the US approach to the cross-strait situation and the US approach to our very important and robust but unofficial partnership with Taiwan, all of those policies remain unchanged," Kritenbrink said, alluding to China by the initials of its official name.

However, Qian Jin, Beijing's deputy consul general in New York, said any suggestion that Tsai should receive credit for a supposedly low-key approach misses the point, describing past US transits by the Taiwanese leader as "mistakes".

"We cannot say that because this is not that serious, that this is encouraging," he told a round-table discussion with journalists on Thursday. "No, nothing is encouraging."

"Any previous mistakes should not justify a new mistake," he added. "What is encouraging is stop using Taiwan as a card to contain China."

Beijing said it would "resolutely hit back" if a planned meeting between Tsai and McCarthy proceeded.

Chinese officials also accused Washington of colluding with Tsai to promote the cause of the island's independence. They cautioned that any such meeting would give rise to another "serious confrontation" in the Sino-US relationship.

But Taipei's security chief on Thursday said he did not expect Beijing to respond on the scale it did when McCarthy's predecessor as House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, visited the island last August. He said the situation now was not as complicated as then, although he believed the mainland would escalate its military operations around Taiwan.

Asked whether American officials had seen indications yet of a response to Tsai's visit by China's military, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: "We've seen no real tangible reaction from the PRC."

"I think we've all seen them react in a rhetorical way but we see no indication that there's been any other type of reaction," Kirby said on Thursday. "There is no reason for that given how commonplace these transits are."

Tsai's American stopovers coincide with former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou's historic 12-day visit to mainland China. Ma twice served as chairman of the Kuomintang, the island's Beijing-friendly opposition party.

Beijing has claimed it sees no links between Ma's and Tsai's travels, but some observers said the mainland authorities were seeking to offset her US visit by welcoming his.

China's defence ministry on Thursday held a monthly routine press conference, and no questions or remarks touched on Taiwan, according to the transcript on its website.

Meanwhile, organisers of Tsai's visit in New York have gone to great lengths to keep Tsai's engagements during the transit private, denying access to most local and foreign media.

Tsai on Wednesday attended a banquet in the city, but reporters from Taiwan who were travelling in her entourage were unaware of the event until after they arrived in the US.

Tsai at the banquet addressed her hosts, who included New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and New York State Senator Iwen Chu, saying Taiwan faced "tremendous challenges" and that Taiwan "cannot be isolated", nor did it take "friendship for granted".

Calling Taiwan-US ties "closer than ever", Tsai said that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd - the world's largest maker of microchips and popularly known as TSMC - setting up a factory in Phoenix, Arizona, showed that the island's "technological prowess is spreading worldwide".

Tsai began her day on Thursday with a breakfast with Taiwanese business owners and professionals at Brooklyn's Win Son Bakery. Later she visited the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, where she met with members of the island's diplomatic community and cultural icons like Liya Chu, winner of a Fox cooking show, and cartoonists A ee mi and Saitemiss. Tsai was seen posing for selfies and was presented with an illustration of her cats.

Later on Thursday, Tsai was expected to receive a "global leadership award" and deliver a speech at an event organised by the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Kritenbrink on Thursday criticised Beijing for its increased "provocative activity" in the Taiwan Strait in recent years and for having stepped up its pressure campaign against the island in military, economic, diplomatic and informational matters.

"Unilateral attempts to change the status quo will not pressure the United States government to alter our long-standing practice to facilitate transits through the United States," he said.

Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has said it will eventually unite the island with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Few countries, including the US, recognise the island as an independent state. Under official US policy, Washington does not recognise Beijing's claim of sovereignty over Taiwan but "acknowledges" that the claim exists.

Craig Singleton, a China scholar with the non-partisan Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said the Biden administration could confidently argue that Tsai's visit was consistent with the one-China policy and Taiwan Relations Act, given its provision that Taiwan be treated the same under US law as other "foreign countries, nations, states, governments, or similar entities".

Furthermore, he added, while China would protest Tsai's trip, McCarthy's decision to meet Tsai in California at this juncture, rather than Taiwan, was "principled and pragmatic without being overly provocative".

Yet Singleton saw little hope for improved US-China relations any time soon.

"At present, there is little chance of an upside surprise in the bilateral relationship following Tsai's trip," he said. "In fact, Sino-US relations are likely to get worse, before worsening even further."

Additional reporting by Robert Delaney in Washington

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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