TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A legislative commission from Taiwan will visit the U.S. Congress in mid-September as part of legislative diplomacy to boost bilateral ties.
Chen I-shin (陳以信), a KMT legislator and deputy chair of the USA Caucus of the Legislative Yuan, will lead an eight-to-ten member delegation to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Chen said in a statement.
The bipartisan group is expected to meet U.S. senators and representatives from administrative departments. Arranged by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., the de facto Taiwan embassy, the trip does not seek to involve meetings with specific figures.
Chen said it is a regular, annual visit by the caucus to Washington and an essential part of exchanges between the lawmakers of the two countries. Plans to travel to the U.S. in the past two years were scrapped due to the pandemic.
The announcement comes following three U.S. congressional visits to Taiwan in August. The trips involved U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; a delegation led by Senator Ed Markey, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy; and Senator Marsha Blackburn, who sits on the Senate Commerce and Armed Services committees.
The U.S. has said the exchanges should not be used as a pretext for China to make any aggressive moves. Infuriated, Beijing has responded with military drills and a salvo of economic retaliatory measures.