Beijing urges US to block Taiwan president’s stopover in Hawaii

China urged the US on Thursday not to allow Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to stop over in Hawaii next week when she tours the island’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific. Tsai said she will transit Hawaii on her way home from an eight-day visit to Palau, Nauru and the Marshall Islands, which began on Thursday, Reuters reported. Beijing has lodged “stern representations” over Tsai’s planned stopover in the US, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said. “We have consistently and resolutely opposed the US or other countries which have diplomatic relations with China arranging this kind of transit,” Geng said in Beijing. China urged the US not to send “Taiwan independence forces any wrong signal,” he added. The US, like most other countries, has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is the island’s largest weapons supplier and most powerful international backer.