Tsai Ing-wen is on a foreign trip to bolster Taiwan’s international standing before stepping down

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is heading to Central America days after Honduras severed diplomatic ties with Taipei. Tsai vowed to maintain strong ties in the face of China’s diplomatic offensive after visiting the jungle ruins of a Mayan civilization castle Saturday with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei.

Tsai’s major foreign trip before she steps down next year, including a stop in the United States and an expected meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is not aimed at a diplomatic breakthrough, but rather at bolstering Taiwan’s standing with U.S. leaders amid geopolitical turmoil.

The New York Times reported on April 2 that Tsai Ing-wen’s foreign trip, before she steps down as president for two terms, is a balancing act between her emergence on the international stage as one of the world’s most important leaders and the competing demands of the world’s two most powerful nations. China regards Taiwan as a province to be reunified and wants to keep it under its authoritarian regime, while the United States wants to maintain Taiwan as a democratic society as a force in its broader confrontation with China.
Steve Yates, director of the China Policy program at the America First Policy Institute, said Tsai has earned her status in the eyes of Americans and as a trusted interlocutor in the rest of the world. That makes it hard for China’s propaganda machine to paint her as some kind of fanatical aggressor who hates everything about China.
As president, Tsai has developed the closest ties with the United States since Taiwan became a democracy 30 years ago, gaining unofficial support beyond the supply of arms, the report said. Further strengthening Taipei’s ties with Washington creates space for other countries that do not formally recognize Taiwan’s government, including Japan and other European countries, to expand ties with Taiwan.
All this offers Taiwan’s best hope of shoring up its defences in the face of China’s increasingly belligerent threat of military reunification. Ms Tsai is also doing her best to push back against China without openly confronting the economic and military powers across the Taiwan Strait.
Tsai has privately described this position as a “tightrope walk,” according to two sources who work close to her, the report said.
New York Times recalls that Tsai had to overcome initial doubts about her geopolitics. Despite her close ties to many in Washington, U.S. leaders have little faith in the Democratic Progressive Party, in part because efforts to improve relations with China were frustrated by former Democratic Progressive President Chen Shui-bian’s penchant for infuriating speeches.
In 2011, Tsai Ing-wen, as the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, visited the United States to present her foreign policy outlook to the Obama administration. At the time, a senior administration official told the Financial Times that Washington had clear doubts about her ability and willingness to maintain stable relations with China. At the time, President Ma Ying-jeou ordered a detente between the two sides. This American feeling helped Mr Ma win the presidential election in 2012.
The report said Tsai learned from the loss and tried to avoid things that could be seen as directly irritating China. By the time Ms. Tsai returned to Washington as a presidential candidate in 2015, she had shaped the Democratic Progressive Party around a consistent vision: to work calmly to consolidate Taiwan’s sovereignty and independence without inflaming the fragile Sino-American relationship. Some say that Tsai wants to push Taiwan’s position as a sovereign state as far as possible without losing the trust of the Americans.
The report said the strategy has helped strengthen ties between the U.S. and Taiwan. President Biden has repeatedly vowed to defend Taiwan should it come under attack by the Communist Party, despite each White House clarification that U.S. policy toward China has not changed.