The leader of Taiwan’s largest opposition party left for a 10-day visit to the United States on Thursday. Kuomintang Chair Eric Chu will travel to San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York and Los Angeles.
While campaigning for his party’s leadership last year, Chu said the United States had become an “echo chamber” for the ruling party’s views. He promised at that time to repair the Kuomintang’s relationship with Washington.
The party says Chu will meet several top US officials and lawmakers during his trip. Media reports also suggest he will meet with the head of Indo-Pacific affairs at the National Security Council, Kurt Campbell. Chu says he plans to exchange views on the Indo-Pacific, ties with China, and cooperation between Taiwan and the United States.
The trip comes after Chu’s party opened a new representative office in the United States in January. That followed 14 years in which the Kuomintang had no representation in Washington.
Chu says the aims of his trip are to show the importance of his party’s relationship with Washington and to counter narratives that the Kuomintang opposes the United States.