TAIPEI, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Former Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Friday that she would visit the United States next week to speak at a Stanford University security conference, her first trip to the country since leaving office in 2024.
• Tsai wrote on Facebook that she would attend the Stanford DEFCON 2026 Technology & National Security Conference and deliver the opening remarks.
• “I will share Taiwan’s experience with friends from academia, government, and the technology industry, as well as how we continue to face new challenges in balancing technological development, democratic resilience, and national security,” she wrote.
• China’s government, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, routinely objects to any foreign visits by senior Taiwanese officials, including former leaders. Its foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
• Tsai has already been to countries including Britain, France and Canada since she left office.
• China refused to speak to Tsai after she won office in 2016, and then reelection in 2020, believing that both she and her Democratic Progressive Party are “separatists”. China also refuses to speak to her successor, current President Lai Ching-te.
• Lai has yet to visit the United States under President Donald Trump’s second administration. The United States has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but is its most important international backer and arms supplier.
• Taiwan’s government says it has a right to engage with the rest of the world and rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jamie Freed)
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