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TAIPEI (AP) — A gaggle of French senators arrived in Taiwan for a five-day go to Wednesday following a big Chinese language present of pressure with fighters jets and escalating diplomatic stress towards the island.
The group, led by senator Alain Richard, will meet with President Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwanese financial and well being officers and the Mainland Affairs Council. Richard, a former French protection minister, beforehand visited Taiwan in 2015 and 2018, in response to Taiwan’s semi-official Central Information Company, and heads the Taiwan Friendship group within the French senate.
China’s ambassador to France Lu Shaye despatched a warning letter in February calling on Richard to cancel the Taiwan go to, in response to native media reviews.
The go to will probably provoke a rebuke from China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its personal territory and subsequently opposes any worldwide engagement with the island equivalent to visits by overseas authorities officers. It additionally has aggressively poached Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies.
In its most up-to-date show of sustained navy harassment, China flew fighter jets 149 occasions towards Taiwan over 4 days from Friday to Monday. The White Home known as the flights dangerous and destabilizing, whereas China responded that the U.S. promoting weapons to Taiwan and its ships navigating the Taiwan Strait had been provocative.
China and Taiwan cut up amid civil warfare in 1949. Right this moment they’ve in depth commerce and funding ties however no official relations, and China has more and more mobilized navy, diplomatic and financial stress to undermine Tsai’s independence-leaning administration.
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Related Press videojournalist Taijing Wu contributed to this report.
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