President Tsai Ing-wen (???) has made transit stopovers in the United States before visiting the nation’s diplomatic allies in the past, and the Chinese government has no right to comment on or interfere with these high-level Taiwan-U.S. exchanges, a diplomatic source told CNA Thursday.

The source said Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) presidents regularly visited diplomatic allies twice a year before the COVID-19 pandemic and often made transit stopovers on American soil before and after visiting the allies in Central and South America, the Caribbean, or Africa.

During their stopovers in the U.S., they would often meet with local officials and overseas Taiwanese, the source said.

Though the source did not confirm if President Tsai is indeed planning to visit Belize and Guatemala in April with stopovers in the U.S., the source stressed that it would not be unusual if Tsai did make the trip and meet with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California as reported by the Financial Times earlier this week.

The source also stressed that even if Tsai did meet McCarthy in the U.S. instead of Taipei, the decision will have been made mutually by Taipei and Washington and not in order to avoid an aggressive Chinese military response amid tensions between Beijing and Washington, as stated in the Financial Times article.

“A neighbor is in no position to have a say on two friends visiting each other,” the source added, referring to China and the exchanges between Taiwan and the U.S.

The unnamed source made the remarks when asked to comment on Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning’s (??) Wednesday remark that China was concerned about Tsai’s reported transit and had already presented strong objections to Washington and demanded that the latter clarify the situation.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel