Day: March 28, 2023

Myanmar’s military junta on Tuesday announced the dissolution of the National League for Democracy – the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi that won the 2020 elections in a landslide – ahead of elections the regime plans to hold later this year.

The NLD did not re-register with the military junta’s Election Commission, which said a total of 40 political parties were dissolved because they did not re-register as political parties within 60 days, according to the new laws and regulations enacted by the military council.

Opponents and analysts say new stricter eligibility requirements, approved in January by the military that took control of the government in a February 2021 coup, favor military-aligned parties and seek to legitimize the junta through a sham election.

Some opponents of the military have urged a boycott of the election, the date of which has yet to be announced. Opponents warn that smaller parties that take part will likely lose and only lend credibility to the junta. 

There are 63 political parties that have registered with the commission as of Tuesday.

Only the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which ran the country as a quasi-civilian government under then-President Thein Sein after an opposition boycott of the 2010 election held by the previous junta, is seen as a legitimate contender in 2023. 

The party, which serves as the junta’s electoral proxy, challenged the NLD’s election win in 2010 based on allegations of fraud and assumed Myanmar’s presidency following the 2021 coup. 

But other groups, including the Shan and Ethnic Nationalities Party, believe that an election is the only way to reestablish civilian rule in Myanmar.

‘Never turning back to democracy’

“The military junta has learned clearly by taking the 2010 general election into account that they would lose the election if the opposition party NLD competes,” political and legal analyst Kyee Myint said. 

That’s why the junta has detained Suu Kyi, just as they have in the past, he said.

“The military has proven again this time that they are never turning back to democracy,” Kyee Myint said. “In fact, we already know it as a fact. We just continue to see more and more proof that backs this fact.”

The election commission is organized under an illegal military junta that has operated as a terrorist organization, said Nay Phone Latt, a spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government.

“There is no reason that these political parties should be dissolved just by an announcement of this so-called election commission,” he said.

RFA sought comment from the U.S. State Department on the election commission’s action but didn’t immediately receive a response on Tuesday. 

The announcement that the 40 parties have been dissolved carries no legitimacy because the junta itself doesn’t represent the people and “is by no means legal,” said Kyaw Htway, a Central Working Committee member for the NLD.

Over and over, the junta has searched party offices, sealed off homes and seized the property of party members, Kyaw Htway said. 

“Our party has a lot of experience resisting the repression of a series of military dictators over the 30 years since it was established,” he said. “In this modern technological age, we can still do even more for the people despite the junta’s announcement.”

“That’s why I want to say that our party that emerged from the people, with the trust and support of them, will continue to exist so long as the people exist.”

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

A land rights activist accused of giving interviews to foreign media and storing illegally printed books was sentenced to six years in prison for “conducting anti-state propaganda.” 

Only Truong Van Dung’s wife was allowed to attend the half-day trial as a witness. Many activists in Hanoi told Radio Free Asia that they had been forced to stay at home or were prevented from getting near the court.

According to his indictment, Dung gave interviews to U.S.-based Saigon Dallas Radio between 2015 and 2022 that distorted and smeared Vietnam’s government, propagated fabricated information and caused confusion among the people. The interviews and video clips were posted on social media.  

The Hanoi People’s Procuracy also accused Dung of storing copies of two books: “Popular Politics” by human rights activist Pham Doan Trang and “Life of People Behind Bars” by former prisoner of conscience Pham Thanh Nghien. The books were allegedly printed and distributed illegally. 

Dung, 65, was convicted under Article 88 of Vietnam’s 1999 penal code, a controversial law used to target dissidents that rights groups say is one of several wielded to stifle voices of dissent in the one-party communist state. 

‘Latest in a long line’

His wife, Nghiem Thi Hop, told RFA that defense lawyers argued that he did not conduct the interviews as alleged in the indictment. But prosecutors said the Hanoi Department of Information and Communications concluded that it was Dung who spoke to the program.

She said police used physical violence against Dung during interrogations. 

Dung has participated in protests in Hanoi, including demonstrations against China’s occupation of the Paracel Islands — an island group in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam — and protests against the Taiwan-owned Formosa Company for polluting the coastline of four central Vietnamese provinces of Vietnam in 2016.

Public protests even over perceived harm to Vietnam’s interests are considered threats to its political stability and are routinely suppressed by the police.

Before the trial, Human Rights Watch called on Vietnam to drop all charges against Dung. The organization’s deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson, said in a statement on Monday that Dung was “the latest in a long line of human rights defenders silenced by the Vietnamese government for protesting against human rights violations and advocating for reforms.” 

At least 11 activists have been detained for investigation on Article 88 charges while they await a scheduled date for their trial.

Sentence in case tied to U.S.-based organization

In a separate case, an appeals court in Ho Chi Minh City upheld sentences for two people accused of being members of the Provisional Government of Vietnam – a U.S.-based opposition group described by Vietnamese authorities as a terrorist organization.

Nguyen Van Nghia, 48, and Duong Thi Be, 41, were sentenced to seven years and five years in prison, respectively, according to the online edition of the People’s Newspaper. 

Both were charged with “carrying out activities to overthrow the people’s government” under Article 109 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code. They were first sentenced in October by Kien Giang province’s court.

Based in Orange County, California, the Provisional Government of Vietnam was founded in 1991 by former soldiers and refugees loyal to the U.S.-backed government of South Vietnam that was overthrown and absorbed by North Vietnam in 1975. The group now refers to itself as the Third Republic of Vietnam, according to its website.

According to the indictment, Nghia visited the homepage of the Provisional Government of Vietnam in 2014. He also participated in a “referendum” in 2018 to elect Vietnamese-American citizen Dao Minh Quan, who leads the organization, as president of the Third Republic of Vietnam.

More than 60 arrests since 2017

Nghia was also said to have recruited many people to join the organization, and at the end of October 2021, he registered Be, his girlfriend, to be a member of the organization. He also allegedly called on government and military officers in Vietnam to join the organization. 

Later in 2021, he was assigned to be the official spokesman for the organization in Vietnam.

According to RFA statistics, at least 60 people in Vietnam have been convicted for being members of Dao Minh Quan’s organization since 2017. They were all charged with “carrying out activities against the state,” and many were accused of committing violent and terrorist acts, including making petrol bombs and burning airport garages.

However, some people, including Tran Van Luong, who was sentenced to five years in 2017 and released last year, have told RFA that they were not a member of the organization.

According to Luong, police arrested him only because he had been dissatisfied with the Vietnamese government and had voiced his criticism on Facebook. Then they forced him to make statements that he had contacted Dao Minh Quan’s organization.

A leader from the organization told RFA that it would take action to help the arrestees in Vietnam. The official did not disclose what would be done. 

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

Ethnic Karen rebels have attacked and seized a long-held military camp in Kayin state along Myanmar’s border with Thailand, officials with the Karen National Union said Tuesday, calling it the last of the large camps held by the junta along the key Thanlwin River.

The loss of the camp is the latest blow to the military, which launched a far-reaching offensive after taking power in a February 2021 coup d’etat, but has encountered staunch resistance from anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary groups and ethnic armies in recent months, despite outclassing them in training, equipment and manpower.

The KNU’s military wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, attacked the camp in Hpapun district’s Mel Kha Hta at around 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday because of its strategic importance to the military, KNU Foreign Affairs Officer Padoh Saw Taw Nee told RFA Burmese, noting that it had a key role in supplying troops with food and other necessities.

“It can be said that the camp is the largest among those located along the Thanlwin River – that’s why it’s important,” he said. “This is the last large camp left, as most of the junta camps like this one have been shut down.”

Padoh Saw Taw Nee said that there were more than 60 junta soldiers stationed at the camp, which the military “defended vigorously” over the course of nearly two hours using small and heavy weapons.

Details of the battle had yet to be confirmed, he added.

A member of the KNLA in an area controlled by Brigade No. 5 said his group had killed at least 10 junta soldiers and seized military equipment in the clash. Two KNLA soldiers were injured in the fighting.

The KNLA set fire to all of the buildings in the military camp, he added, and the two sides are continuing to monitor one another.

Large camp housed dozens of soldiers

A Myanmar refugee sheltering in Thailand across the Thanlwin River from the Mel Kha Hta camp told RFA that he saw smoke billowing above the area for about an hour after the battle.

“I think the camp was set on fire around 7:00 in the morning,” he said. “As the smoke continued to rise, I saw that their camp had been captured, but I couldn’t see any junta soldiers running away.”

The refugee confirmed that the camp “is a big one” and said junta soldiers who had fled when the KNLA recently captured the nearby Thaw Le Hta military camp were sheltering there.

A source who lives in the vicinity of the camp said he saw two Mi-35 military helicopters circling the area at around noon on Tuesday. He said that by the afternoon, no one remained at the camp.

Other residents of the area told RFA that before the camp was seized, the KNLA had warned the junta soldiers stationed there to join the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement that has seen tens of thousands of government employees leave their jobs in protest of military rule.

The military had yet to make any announcements regarding the capture of the camp as of the time of publishing.

Saw Khin Maung Myint, the economic minister and junta spokesman for Kayin state, told RFA that he had heard the camp was seized, but was unable to provide any details.

Nearly 1,000 villagers from areas near the Mel Kha Hta camp fled to safety on Tuesday out of fear that the junta might use airstrikes to retaliate against the rebels, residents told RFA.

According to the KNU News and Information Department, more than 8,000 clashes have taken place in the areas controlled by the KNU during the two years of military rule.

Thousands flee Magway offensive

Reports of the border clash came as RFA learned that thousands of residents of Magway region’s Pakokku township have been forced to flee their homes since the beginning of a military offensive in the area on Feb. 11.

Residents said that around 300 junta soldiers have been stationed in the Myit Chay-Kyun area’s historic Tant Kyi Taung Pagoda, a power plant, a pharmaceutical factory and Let Pan Chaung village since the start of the offensive. 

They said that over the last six weeks, the soldiers have been raiding and firing heavy artillery at 15 nearby villages located at the foot of Tantkyitaung Mountain and across the Ayeyarwaddy River from the ancient city of Bagan.

A resident of Aing Gyi, one of the villages that came under attack, said that not only have civilians had to flee the military offensives, but also have nowhere to shelter due to junta travel restrictions.

“Some of us could not bring our national registration cards when we had to run and now can’t go to other cities, as we need the card to do so,” said the resident who, like other sources RFA spoke with, declined to be named citing security concerns.

“That’s why we have nowhere to stay but here in this open area and are forced to run in the opposite direction any time the junta troops come.”

The resident said that junta troops have also cut off their access to food, water, and electricity.

Aing Gyi’s entire population of around 3,000 people have been constantly on the run for the 10 days since the raid on their village, he said.

Other residents who fled the 15 villages told RFA they are only able to eat one meal a day and that children and the elderly are “in desperate need of medicine.”

Raids increased in March

A resident of Let Pan Chaung village said the displaced are concerned about the approaching rainy season as they have no stable place to shelter.

The resident said that the military arrested five people from his village in March. While two have been released, junta troops “are torturing a 17-year-old and two men in their 50s” for information about the area’s armed resistance.

Some 2,000 people – nearly the entire population of Let Pan Chaung – are on the run while the military remains stationed at the village, he added.

Other residents said that the raids had become even more regular since March 5, when the anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary group used landmines to attack junta troops entering Myo Soe village – another of the 15 tracts that have come under attack since Feb. 11.

The number of homes in each of the 15 villages varies from 200 to 600, and while sources told RFA that “many residents” had been arrested during the raids, the exact number remains unclear.

Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun about the raids in Pakokku township went unanswered Tuesday, as did inquiries to the military press team.

Junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has said that Myanmar’s military does not destroy civilian villages, but RFA reporting suggests otherwise. Sources regularly relate stories of soldiers engaging in looting, arson, torture and killing during the raids as part of a scorched earth offensive by the military.

According to the latest situation reports published by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on March 4 and March 21, the number of war refugees in Myanmar increased by more than 100,000 throughout the country in the two weeks from Feb. 27 to March 13 alone.

The latest additions – most of whom live in Kachin, Kayah, and Shan states, as well as eastern Bago region – bring the number of those displaced by conflict in the country to more than 1.7 million people, UNOCHA said.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

Journalists in Hong Kong say they are being followed by unidentified law enforcement personnel, prompting calls for a police investigation from their union amid deteriorating press freedom in the city.

The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association said it had received reports from several news organizations and journalists in the past week that reporters were being “followed or monitored” by unidentified men.

The Hong Kong Free Press online newspaper said its court reporter “was followed from her home to her workplace for over an hour by two men with earpieces” on March 22, adding that the pair had refused to answer questions or reveal their identities when confronted by a staff member at a subway station.

The journalists’ union said it had received similar reporters from a number of different media covering the trial of the now-shuttered independent outlet Stand News, and that court reporters appeared to be the main target for the surveillance.

“Journalists reported the incident to the Journalists’ Association, saying that based on the clothing and behavior of the men in the incident, they suspected that they were plainclothes law enforcement officers,” the union said in a statement on its website dated March 27.

“The Association is very concerned about journalists being followed,” it said. “Threats to the personal safety of journalists, especially court reporters, will make the general public … worry that some people are trying to use coercion to damage reporters’ exercise of their reporting rights.”

“The Association … will not tolerate any intimidation or harassment of journalists and the media,” it said, adding that women journalists are more likely to be targeted for this sort of intimidation.

“No journalist should be harassed because of their gender,” the statement said, and called on the Hong Kong police to investigate the matter, and confirm whether they had carried out any operations targeting journalists in recent days.

“The Journalists’ Association urges the police to take the matter seriously, follow up and investigate, and bring the suspects to justice as soon as possible,” it said.

Plunging rank

Cedric Alviani, East Asia bureau director for the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, said journalists in Hong Kong should be able to work freely and without fear of harassment.

“We are concerned by the fact a Hong Kong Free Press reporter was ostentatiously followed in broad daylight by an unidentified individual,” Alviani was quoted by the Hong Kong Free Press as saying.

Alviani pointed out that Hong Kong, once considered a bastion of press freedom, has plummeted from 80th place in 2021 to 148th place in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index, the index’s sharpest drop of the year.

According to the group’s website, at least 28 journalists and press freedom defenders have been prosecuted in Hong Kong over the past three years under a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party from July 1, 2020.

Thirteen of those are currently behind bars, while at least seven independent media outlets have shut down “because of the repressive climate,” including Jimmy Lai’s Apple Daily and Stand News, it said.

The group also pointed to new rules from the Hong Kong government forcing five local broadcasters to air 30 minutes’ worth of “national security education” propaganda programming per week.

Under the rules, TVB, ViuTV and HOY TV, Commercial Radio and Metro Broadcast, must now air “no less than 30 minutes” of propaganda per week, including content relating to “national education, national identity and National Security Law,” if they want their licenses to be reviewed in a few years’ time, it said.

“In Hong Kong like anywhere else, the purpose of the media is to impart independent information for the benefit of the public, and forcing them to broadcast state propaganda in the name of national security is just unacceptable,” Alviani said. “We call on the Hong Kong government to withdraw this measure, and more generally to restore full press freedom as enshrined in the Basic Law.”

The Hong Kong police later wrote to the Journalists’ Association, criticizing it for “rumor-mongering” and for publishing “unverified and inaccurate reports and comments” that misled the public.

Harassed and shoved

Independent journalist Lam Yin-bong said a reporter with the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper had been shoved and verbally abused by police as he filmed the prosecutor in the Stand News case at the Wanchai District Court, and said the incident could be connected to the recent monitoring of court reporters.

“The incident involving the reporter being followed and monitored happened about four days after that scuffle between the [Ming Pao] reporter and police,” Lam said. “All of the reporters who said they were followed and surveilled had all been reporting on the Stand News case at Wanchai District Court.”

He said he didn’t believe the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association was dealing in rumors, but rather raising reasonable concerns with the police.

“Those people had earpieces on, and didn’t respond when asked who they were,” Lam said. “Some journalists also saw them presenting their documents to the court, which made people suspect that they were some kind of police or law enforcement.”

“If the police have discovered that these people aren’t police officers, they should come out and say so,” he said.

Lam said there are now few freedoms left for Hong Kong journalists, who had focused on national security trials and protest-related cases as a relatively safe way to cover the ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition.

“There is huge psychological pressure on journalists right now, with many suspecting that they’re being followed,” he said. “The hardest thing to deal with is that you never know who these people are.”

Hong Kong Free Press founder and editor-in-chief Tom Grundy vowed to pursue those following its journalists through every legal channel open to it.

“If you try this nonsense, HKFP will use every bureaucratic & legal avenue possible to follow-up, relentlessly,” he said via his Twitter account.

“We’ll film it, make police complaints, publish stories, enlist NGOs & our lawyers, & reserve the right not to blur faces. Every single time,” Grundy wrote.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Residents in a northern province of North Korea are reporting an increase in violent crime, seemingly driven by a worsening economy, hunger and a lack of affordable food, sources told Radio Free Asia.

The recent killing of two young women during a botched robbery in Hyesan, a city on the Chinese border, has put people in Ryanggang province on edge, they said.

“On the 20th, at around 5:00 pm, there was a shocking incident in which two men rushed into a house in the Hyesong neighborhood and they murdered two of the three women living there while trying to rob them,” a resident of the city told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

The women living in the house were aged 22, 23 and 27, and the two victims were stabbed to death, according to the source. 

“The one who escaped was the homeowner. The robbers held a knife at her and told her to give him money. She was able to get away by saying it was in the attic, and pretending to go up to retrieve it, but running away instead,” the source said. 

Military police officers who were on patrol in the area arrived and arrested the suspects, the source said.

“The trial for the robbery was held the next day in public,” said the source. “Although the arrested men are members of society, they were tried by military law for committing a robbery at a time when the domestic situation was militarily tense.” 

The source said that after the trial the men were led away, so nobody knows for sure what will happen to them, but many expect they will be executed by firing squad.

Crime statistics from North Korea are not available, so it is impossible to verify whether there has been an uptick. But the source said the increase in March has been notable and food and money problems are often the motive.

“After a night’s sleep, you wake up to learn there was a murder somewhere, and then the next day, you’ll hear about a series of robberies somewhere else,” he said.

Another Ryanggang resident said the crime wave extends beyond Hysean, and that a friend in nearby Samsu county said over the phone that many robberies, thefts and murders are happening there as well.

“Murders, break-ins, and thefts are particularly prevalent this year, which has something to do with the worsening food shortage,” the second source said. “Residents are blaming the authorities for failing to take proper measures to stabilize society [by addressing] the food shortages.”

Chronic hunger

North Korea has been chronically short on food for decades, but has been able to cover gaps between supply and demand through imports or international aid. This became impossible during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Sino-Korean border was closed and suspended all trade with China, the country’s chief economic partner.

Though cross-border trade has resumed in limited capacity, it has not been enough for the country to rebound completely. 

People in Hyesan are starving to the point that they are eating the soybean residue from the tofu making process, normally thought to be a waste product, the second source said.

“You can’t even use [the residue] to make any kind of porridge or broth,” he said. “As starvation becomes more rampant due to the food shortage, you hear about more terrible robberies happening all the time.” 

Hyesan has had a 7:00 p.m. curfew in place for some time, and opportunistic criminals strike when there’s nobody out on the streets, the second source said, recalling an incident where three robbers broke into a home that doubled as a place of business for the owner, a street food vendor.

The second source said that the three men came to the house just before the curfew, claiming they were there to buy food. When the vendor opened the door to them, they rushed in and robbed her.

“They took all of the food that was for sale, including noodles, rice, candy and sweets,” he said.

Authorities are investigating the case, and because the robbery occurred before the vendor’s husband arrived home, they suspect that the three robbers are people that would know his schedule, according to the second source. 

“The three men were wearing masks so it’s not known if they are soldiers or civilians,” he said.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Most travelers do their best to avoid extended layovers. 

Not Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who arrives in New York on Wednesday for two nights of what is being billed as “transit” en route to the democratic island’s few remaining allies in Central America.

Tsai won’t be using the down time to visit the Statue of Liberty or to brave a chilly walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. She won’t even catch the Yankees’ spring training game against the San Francisco Giants.

Instead, the Taiwanese president, who has weathered a year of predictions about her island being invaded by China amid worsening relations between Washington and Beijing, has some work planned.

On Thursday, her only full day in New York, Tsai is set to receive a leadership award from the Hudson Institute, a conservative foreign-policy think tank, where she will also deliver a speech.

After leaving on Friday for Guatemala and Belize – two of the few remaining countries to maintain diplomatic ties with her self-governing island instead of Beijing – Tsai then flies back to Los Angeles on Tuesday, where she will spend two more nights in transit.

There, Tsai will deliver another speech – this time at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, in the nearby city of Simi Valley – and meet new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has vowed to lead a congressional delegation back to Taiwan later this year.

If that all sounds a lot like an official visit to the United States by the leader of a close ally (to which President Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed full military support) don’t be confused. It’s just transit.

What’s in a name?

On March 8, Matt Lee, the diplomatic writer for the Associated Press, asked the State Department’s then-spokesman, Ned Price, why Tsai’s visit was still being billed just as “transit,” questioning the official U.S. line that it was being allowed for her “comfort and convenience.”

“It may be ‘comfortable’ and it may be ‘convenient,’ kind of like spending two weeks in Palm Springs on the U.S. government’s dime preparing for APEC,” Lee said, referring to an annual conference. But he added, “if I was flying from the U.S. to China and decided to stop in L.A. for three days, I don’t think the airline would say that’s transit.”

Price did not budge, refusing to describe Tsai’s visit as anything other than “transit” and saying it was part of the “status quo” on Taiwan, which buys billions of dollars of U.S. arms but which Beijing considers a renegade province and has vowed to “reunite” with the mainland.

“Transits of the United States by high-level Taiwan officials are consistent with longstanding U.S. policy and with our unofficial and strong relations with Taiwan,” Price said. “President Tsai herself has transited the United States six times in the last seven years. There has been absolutely no change to the U.S. ‘One China’ policy.”

“The transit of high-level Taiwan officials is consistent” with the “One China” policy, Price explained. “It’s been done before. It is a practice.” He added that he was “not aware” of any plans for State Department officials to meet Tsai during her six days on American soil. 

Semi official

Dennis Wilder, a research fellow with the U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University, told Radio Free Asia that the sensitivities around Tsai’s trip came down to Washington’s balancing act on Taiwan since it normalized relations with Beijing in the 1970s.

That switch in diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing – brokered by President Richard Nixon from the late 1960s but formalized by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 – has required the U.S. to deny Taiwan is independent of Beijing, even as it serves as the island’s patron.

Wilder, who served as CIA deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific and before that as the White House National Security Council’s director for East Asia under President George W. Bush, said the use of “transit” for trips like Tsai’s was meant to placate Beijing.

“The history of the U.S. relationship with Taiwan ever since the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China has been one where, if you will, we put an unofficial nature to actually what is pretty official relationships with Taiwan,” Wilder said.

He noted America’s diplomatic mission in Taiwan was not called an embassy but the “American Institute in Taiwan,” that Taiwan’s mission in Washington was similarly misnamed, and that U.S. officials did not meet Taiwanese counterparts in official government buildings.

“There are a lot of little gestures we make that are to, if you will, make Beijing less uncomfortable with the relationship,” Wilder said. “And so for a ‘transit’ like the one that President Tsai will be making, we’ve always called it ‘for the comfort and the safety of the Taiwan leader,’ rather than calling any kind of official visit to the United States.”

“It’s something of a fig leaf,” he added.

Her predecessor visits Beijing

Tsai’s trip to the United States comes at a particularly fraught time in U.S.-China relations, with a visit by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island last year leading to a nadir in relations with Beijing.

Ties between the world’s two superpowers were on the mend until an alleged Chinese spy balloon was found floating over the United States in February, prompting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his trip to Beijing at the last minute.

Tsai’s visit also comes as her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou of the opposition Kuomintang, is in Beijing. 

Ma had sought to improve Taiwan’s ties to Beijing while in office and is the first former Taiwanese president to visit the mainland since the two sides split amid war in 1949. He arrived on Monday and will be there until April 7, the day before Tsai returns from Los Angeles.

But the history of the unofficial ties between Washington and Taipei causing diplomatic froth goes back a lot further than Pelosi and Ma.

The practice of furtive overseas tours was pioneered in 1995 by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, according to William Overholt, a senior research fellow at John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government.

Lee started visiting countries “under the guise of a vacation, and then immediately claiming that their allowing his visit showed that those countries actually recognized Taiwan,” Overholt told RFA.

“He then used it on us, with the excuse of visiting his alma mater Cornell,” Overholt said. That caused the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait Crisis. “Our legislators took the excuse at face value. China reacted to Lee’s larger strategy. It was the greatest Sino-American crisis since 1958.”

“This visit follows that pattern,” he added. “A visit that includes two-day stopovers in both directions and senior government meetings obviously is just a cover for an official visit. This is just a repeat of the Lee strategy, except that we’re more welcoming of that strategy this time.”

Don’t mention the war

There has already been a harsh reaction from Beijing, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin accusing the United States “obscuring and hollowing out the ‘One China’ principle” by allowing Tsai’s visit, and Tsai of trying to “propagate Taiwan independence.”

“We strongly oppose any form of official interaction between the U.S. and Taiwan, strongly oppose any U.S. visit by the leader of the Taiwan authorities regardless of the rationale or pretext, and strongly oppose all forms of U.S. contact with the Taiwan authorities, which violates the ‘One China’ principle,” Wang said in a press briefing last Tuesday.

Wilder said Beijing’s reaction to Tsai’s “transit” would depend on how much the question of potential Taiwanese independence features and how the American media and lawmakers talk about her trip.

“This is really the red line, and one that Beijing will watch very closely,” he said. “The danger is we can love Taiwan too much.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.