Taiwan VP Lai returns from sensitive US visit
STORY: "Because of everyone's hard work, Taiwan's power is stronger and stronger, and it showed the international community that Taiwan is a force for good, that the international community really pays great attention to Taiwan," he said.
Lai officially only made transits in the United States, first in New York and then in San Francisco, on his way to and from Paraguay to attend the new president's inauguration in one of only 13 countries that maintains formal ties with Taipei.
While in the United States, he gave speeches to the Taiwanese community and met officials from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a U.S. government-run non-profit that handles unofficial relations.
Taiwanese officials have said China is likely to conduct military exercises this week near the island, using Lai's U.S. stopovers as a pretext to intimidate voters ahead of next year's presidential election and make them "fear war."
China claims Taiwan as its territory and denounced the transit stops in the U.S., calling Lai a separatist and a "troublemaker."
