The incident comes after Nato leaders on Monday warned of the military challenge posed by China. While democratic Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state, Beijing views the island as a breakaway province.
For Beijing claims to be angered by increasing American support for Taiwan, by itself a non sequitur. It has expressed its opposition to visits by senior US officials to Taipei, which is surprising given that as long back as 2001, then President George W Bush had gone as far as to say that should China attack Taiwan, the US had an obligation to defend the latter. In the years after World War II, Washington and Taipei have shared a warm relationship although the need to engage with China had forced the US to redefine it.
Taiwan has lived independently but in fear since 1949 because China has always claimed suzerainty over the island and has said more than once that it would be justified in even using force to reclaim it.
The United States has sought to downplay Mr Azar’s visit saying it is not the first by an American official ~ the last such visit was in 2014 when the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Gina McCarthy had travelled to Taipei ~ and says it is aimed at gathering valuable inputs on how to tackle Covid-19.
National carrier Air India has changed the name of Taiwan to Chinese Taipei on its website, following instructions from the government.
Japan's two largest airlines have changed "Taiwan" to "China Taiwan" on their Chinese-language websites, officials said today, in a move likely to please Beijing but anger the self-ruled island.
