Two former senior officials of the White House have served as American emissaries this weekend visiting Taiwan after the presidential elections on Saturday that gave victory to the ruling party William Lai.
President George Bush’s former national security advisor (2001-2009), Stephen Hadley, and former deputy secretary of state under Barack Obama’s government (2009-2017), James Steinberg, arrived on the island this Sunday, as reported by the American Institute in Taiwan. (AIT) in a statement.
The former officials will meet with Taiwanese political figures and “convey the congratulations of the American people to Taiwan for its elections,” added the AIT, which operates as the “de facto” US embassy on the island.
In turn, the delegation met with Laura Rosenberg, the president of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and will deliver a message in which they express the US interest “in peace and stability” in the region, the statement says.
The election of Lai, of the Democratic Progressive Party (PDP), cemented Taiwan’s commitment to sovereignty and predicts a worsening of tensions with China.
The Taiwanese issue continues to be one of the main points of friction between China and the US, which, apart from being the main supplier of weapons to Taiwan, could be faced with the situation of having to defend the island in the event of conflict. .
Lai won with 40% of the votes in the elections, and in his first speech after the elections this Saturday he assured that between “democracy and authoritarianism”, the Taiwanese remained “on the side of democracy.”
In the past, the newly elected Taiwanese president, William Lai, defined himself as a “pragmatic worker for the independence of Taiwan”, although he does not consider it necessary to formally declare the secession of the island, arguing that it already works, de facto, as an independent country.
The winning candidate, who will take office on May 20, belongs to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (PDP), which with this victory will chain three consecutive terms in the presidency of the island, a milestone that occurs for the first time in democratic history. from Taiwan.
Taiwan – where the Chinese nationalist army withdrew after defeat at the hands of communist troops in the civil war – has been governed autonomously since 1949, although China claims sovereignty over the island, which it considers a rebellious province for whose “reunification” has not ruled out the use of force
