Taiwan's top security official visits US for talks, source says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The head of Taiwan's National Security Council arrived in the United States for talks with President Donald Trump's administration, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday, days after China concluded war games around Taiwan.

Joseph Wu was leading a delegation for a meeting known as the "special channel," the Financial Times reported earlier. It marked Trump's first use of the channel since returning to the White House on January 20.

Earlier this week, China's military concluded two-day war games around Taiwan in which it held long-range, live-fire drills in the East China Sea, marking an escalation of exercises around the island.

Taiwan has denounced China for holding the drills. The United States, Taiwan's most important international supporter and main arms supplier despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations, condemned the latest exercises earlier this week.

Taiwan is only one area of tension between the United States and China whose ties have been tested by multiple issues such as human rights, the origins of COVID-19 and trade tariffs, including measures put in place by Trump this week.

Trump's tariffs this week also upset Taiwan which called them unreasonable.

Trump has also been critical of Taiwan for taking U.S. semiconductor business, saying he wants the industry to re-base to the United States. Taiwan's top security official has said the Trump administration's support for Taiwan remains "very strong."

China has stepped up rhetoric against Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, calling him a "parasite" on Tuesday in the wake of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Asia visit, during which he repeatedly criticized Beijing.

The White House and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has repeatedly denounced Lai as a "separatist". Lai, who won election last year, rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan's people can decide their future.

Taiwan has lived under the threat of Chinese invasion since 1949 when the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists, though the two sides have not exchanged fire in anger for decades.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Kanishka Singh; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sandra Maler and Stephen Coates)