TAOYUAN — Taiwan’s president departed Saturday for his South Pacific trip that will include a two-day transit in the United States, his first since taking office, although few details of his itinerary have been made public.

Stopovers planned in Hawaii and the territory of Guam have already attracted virulent criticism of Beijingwhich claims Taiwan as its own territory and opposes official trade between that country and the United States, the island’s largest donor and military supplier.

Lai Ching-te will continue a week-long trip to visit the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau – three diplomatic allies of the self-governing Pacific island.

“I want to use the values ​​of democracy, peace and prosperity to continue to expand our cooperation with our allies, deepen our partnership and enable the world to see Taiwan not only as a model of democracy, but also as a vital power in promoting global development. peace, stability and prosperous development,” he said at Taoyuan International Airport before his departure.

Although Taiwan maintains close contact with dozens of other countries, it has only 12 formal diplomatic allies. The autonomous democracy has recently faced increasing pressure from China.

It is not yet clear whether Lai will meet members of the new US administration during his transit.

President-elect Donald Trump said in a July interview with Bloomberg: Taiwan should pay for its defense. The island has purchased billions of dollars of defense weapons from the United States. He also avoided answering whether he would defend the island against Chinese military action.

Even though the United States is required to help the island defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act, it maintains a position of strategic ambiguity about whether it would ever get involved if Taiwan were to be invaded by the China.

A second Trump administration is should test US-China relations even more so than during the Republican’s first term, when the United States imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion in Chinese goods. Taiwan is one of the main sources of tension in bilateral relations.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said Friday that if the United States wants to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait, it is important that it treats the Taiwan issue “with the utmost caution.” , clearly opposing Taiwan’s independence and supporting the peaceful reunification of China.

She also said that China firmly opposes any form of official interaction between the United States and Taiwan, including visits by Taiwanese leaders to the United States for any reason.

When former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen went to the United States last year as part of a transit to Latin Americathis sparked strong opposition from China. Tsai then met with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The Chinese army also launched exercises around Taiwan last year as a “stark warning” about what he called collusion between “separatists and foreign forces” days later Lai, then vice president of Taiwan, stopped in the United States

China also strongly opposes visits by prominent U.S. politicians to the island, as it views any official contact with foreign governments and with Taiwan as an attack on its claims to sovereignty over Taiwan.

Washington transferred its official recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.

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Wu reported from Bangkok