Will Taiwan give in to pressure and stop engaging with the world?

Following her return from a high-profile trip to Central America and the US, where she held intense discussions with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, President Tsai Ing-wen said Taiwan will not give in to pressure and will not be stopped from engaging with the international community.

China, which claims the island nation as its own territory, expressed fury at the meeting with McCarthy. In a statement released shortly after her flight landed, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office reiterated its opposition to the US trip, technically billed as a “transit” but in reality, it was where Tsai held some of her most important meetings.

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Although the statement didn’t hint towards any specific retaliatory steps, it said “The so-called ‘transit’ is just an excuse, but it is actually a provocation, relying on the United States to seek independence.”

Speaking after stepping off her flight at Taiwan’s main international airport at Taoyuan, Tsai highlighted her enthusiastic welcome abroad delivered a powerful message, adding the island nation will be even more united and will not yield to suppression in the face of pressure and threats, nor bring exchanges with the global community to an end.

Tsai returned on an A350 plane chartered from Taiwan’s China Airlines. The country’s defence ministry, roughly 30 minutes before the landing, rejected a Taiwanese media report that the president’s flight had to deal with “unknown interference”. But it did mention the deployment of a special military task force to control the entire process.