BEIJING (Reuters/The Financial Times) – A U.S. lawmaker delegation arrived in Taiwan on Sunday for a two-day visit during which they will meet President Tsai Ing-wen, the second high-level group to come amid continued military tensions with the island’s giant neighbor China.
Beijing, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has been holding military drills around the island to express its anger at this month’s visit to Taipei by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei said the delegation is being led by Senator Ed Markey, who is being accompanied by four other lawmakers on what it described as part of a larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region.
Taiwan’s presidential office said the group would meet Tsai on Monday morning.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry published pictures of four of the group being met at Taipei’s downtown Songshan airport having arrived on a U.S. air force transport jet, while Markey arrived at the Taoyuan international airport.
The U.S. and China displayed their military strength in Indonesia and Thailand by holding war games over the weekend, as the rival powers worked to strengthen their influence in south-east Asia.
China dispatched fighter jets to Thailand on Sunday in a joint air force exercise called Falcon Strike 2022 that Beijing’s defense ministry said would “enhance mutual trust and friendship”.
The Thailand exercises coincided with the conclusion of two weeks of war games between the U.S. and Indonesia, marking the largest version of the annual Garuda Shield live-fire drills since starting in 2009. Japan, Australia and Singapore also joined for the first time.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations called for “maximum restraint” in a statement that avoided referring to Taiwan by name and said it was “ready to play a constructive role in facilitating peaceful dialogue”.
The U.S. has historical strong alliances in south-east Asia and a military presence, though China’s economic influence over the region has grown dramatically in recent years.
Beijing’s territorial disputes with a number of member states in the South China Sea have put several regional governments on edge.
Analysts said that the region would continue to be a source of rivalry between the U.S. and China.
Indonesia’s leader Joko Widodo made a rare trip to China in July to meet president Xi Jinping, one of the few foreign heads of state to do so since the start of the pandemic. Jokowi, as he is known, is hosting the Group of 20 summit in Bali in November and has invited both Xi and U.S. president Joe Biden.