(Taipei) US Senator Marsha Blackburn arrived in Taiwan late Thursday, becoming the fourth US politician to visit the island this month, which is sure to anger Beijing.
Posted at 2:49 p.m.
Tensions between China and the United States have reached their highest level in decades after the visit of Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, which sparked an unprecedented show of military force from Beijing around Taiwan in early August. .
The US government jet carrying Mme Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, landed at Songshan Airport in Taipei shortly before midnight for what the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry says is a solo visit.
“I just landed in Taiwan to send a message to Beijing – we won’t be intimidated,” she tweeted.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it was “grateful that members of the US Congress have once again demonstrated their strong support and commitment to Taiwan by visiting Taiwan” at a time “when China continues to increase its threat.
Beijing claims this autonomous island with a democratic regime as an integral part of its territory and has pledged to seize it one day, by force if necessary.
Mme Pelosi was the highest elected US official to visit Taiwan in decades.
For a week after his visit, China sent warships and warplanes around the island, carrying out its biggest such military maneuvers there since the mid-1990s.
Taiwan has accused Beijing of using Mr.me Pelosi as a pretext to carry out exercises which could serve as a rehearsal for an invasion.
If the government of Joe Biden has discreetly opposed the visit of Mme Pelosi, the United States maintains a separation of powers between the executive and the legislature.
Another congressional delegation, led by Sen. Ed Markey, visited Taiwan shortly after Nancy Pelosi, as China continued its military maneuvers.
Then, earlier this week, Indiana Republican Governor Eric Holcomb arrived on the island.
Mme Blackburn, who sits on the Senate Commerce and Armed Services Committees, supports former President Donald Trump.
Beijing has taken an increasingly belligerent approach to Taiwan under President Xi Jinping, China’s most authoritarian leader in a generation.
Relations soured after the 2016 election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who considers her island a sovereign nation and not part of China.