[ad_1]
The trip by Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, follows a number of recent visits by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other US officials.
“Taiwan is our strongest partner in the Indo-Pacific Region. Regular high-level visits to Taipei are long-standing US policy,” Blackburn said in a statement Thursday.
The visit by Pelosi, who earlier this month became the highest-ranking US official to touch down on the island in 25 years, was cited by Beijing as the trigger for several days of large-scale military exercises in which China fired missiles over Taiwan and flew waves of warplanes into its air defense identification zone.
China’s ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan is part of its territory, despite having never governed it, and has refused to rule out the use of force to bring it under control.
The US has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but is bound by law to provide the island with defensive weapons and has remained…
[ad_2]
