Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen will visit Guatemala and Belize next week, making two stops in the United States, the island’s foreign ministry said Tuesday, as quoted by AFP.

Tsai Ing-wen will depart for ten days starting March 29, with stops in New York and Los Angeles, the ministry explained.

Belize and Guatemala are among the 14 countries that have officially recognized Taiwan instead of China. That number could drop to 13 as Honduras plans to establish formal relations with Beijing after abandoning Taipei.

The President will meet with his counterpart from Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, and with the Prime Minister of Belmopan, John Briseno.

The leader’s visit will take place two weeks after the diplomatic revival of Honduras.

In August 2022, a visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the US House of Representatives, angered Beijing and in response provoked large-scale military maneuvers around the self-governing island.

Taiwan’s Vice Foreign Minister Alexander Yu did not say whether Tsai Ing-wen plans to meet with Nancy Pelosi’s successor, Kevin McCarthy, in Los Angeles.

He only noted that “his transit route was properly coordinated with the United States.”

In any case, this month Kevin McCarthy said he would meet with Tsai Ing-wen in California, and the US State Department played down the importance of the meeting in the face of Chinese outrage.

China considers Taiwan one of its provinces that must be returned, if necessary by force. In the name of its “one China” principle, no country should maintain official ties with Beijing and Taipei at the same time.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin reiterated his country’s opposition to official exchanges between Taiwan and the United States.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel reiterated on Tuesday that it was not unusual for Taiwanese officials to transit through the United States and meet with elected officials or attend public meetings in line with the “one China policy, which remains unchanged.”

Washington, which nevertheless granted diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979, is the island’s strongest ally as well as its main arms supplier.

Central America has been a strategic region for Beijing and Taipei since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

In recent years, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica have changed diplomatic recognition in favor of Beijing.

These upheavals have become more numerous since the election of Tsai Ing-wen, who advocates a tougher policy toward China, arguing that Taiwan is an independent state that is not subject to its neighbor.