U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth reassured Taiwan Tuesday that the United States stands with the self-ruled island despite military and political threats from mainland China.
"The United States stands with Taiwan, and you will not stand alone," Duckworth told Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in their meeting at the presidential office.
Not long after Duckworth arrived on Monday night, 30 Chinese military aircraft flew into the southwestern part of Taiwan's air defense identification zone, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry.
The American Institute in Taiwan, Washington's de facto embassy in lieu of formal diplomatic ties with Taipei, said Duckworth will visit Taiwan from Monday to Wednesday as part of a larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region.
Duckworth will meet other senior Taiwan officials to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade and investment, global supply chains, and other significant issues of mutual interest, it said.
Duckworth told Tsai that the partnership between the United States and Taiwan is "a true partnership, one that is valuable to us" and that the U.S. support for Taiwan is strong within the legislative branch and from President Joe Biden himself.
Duckworth emphasized that she is in Taiwan to support Biden's efforts to foster a "closer relationship between our two nations on an economic front, as well as on national security."
Tsai said Duckworth's visit, which came only a month after a visit by a group of heavyweight senior U.S. lawmakers, demonstrated the "rock-solid" bond between Taiwan and the United States.
In addition to thanking Duckworth for introducing bills friendly to Taiwan, Tsai expressed hopes for even more bilateral cooperation on matters of trade and regional security.
While Taiwan is not included in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework recently launched by Biden, Tsai said she hopes Taiwan will participate in the near future, and she looked forward to working with Washington to further deepen their bilateral economic partnership.
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a news briefing in Beijing Tuesday that China is "strongly dissatisfied and firmly opposed" to the visit by a U.S. senator to Taiwan and that Beijing has made a strong representation to the United States.
Zhao urged U.S. lawmakers to "abide by the one-China principle and the stipulations in three China-U.S. joint communiques, immediately stop sending erroneous acts of having official exchanges with Taiwan and avoid sending any wrong signal to the Taiwan independence separatist forces."
"The Chinese side will continue to take strong measures to resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said.
Taiwan and mainland China have been separately governed since they split due to a civil war in 1949. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province to be united with the mainland, by force if necessary.
The trip marks Duckworth's second visit to Taiwan. She was a member of a bipartisan congressional delegation that visited the island in June 2021.
During that trip, Duckworth announced upon arrival on a U.S. Air Force freighter with the group that Taiwan would receive 750,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine as part of the first tranche of Washington's global vaccine sharing program.
That visit came at a time when Taiwan was grappling with a spike in coronavirus cases amid a low supply of vaccines.
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