China brands Taiwan's Lai Ching-te a 'rat crossing the street' over secret Eswatini visit

China has compared Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te to a "rat crossing the street" after he secretly boarded an Eswatini government aircraft and flew to the small southern African kingdom on an unannounced state visit. The rebuke was issued by China's Taiwan Affairs Office on Saturday, which lashed out at Lai over the visit, which Beijing views as a direct challenge to the one-China principle.

Lai's visit had originally been scheduled for late April, but was called off at the last minute after the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar revoked overflight permits for the Taiwanese leader's charter aircraft – a move Taipei blamed on Chinese pressure. Lai, however, did not ditch the plans for the visit and boarded an Eswatini government plane to complete the journey.

Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is one of only 12 countries with formal diplomatic ties with Taipei. The landlocked nation of fewer than 1.3 million people is the island's sole remaining African ally.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office branded Lai a "troublemaker" and accused him of abandoning the island's residents in the wake of a significant earthquake to fly to Eswatini. "Lai Ching-te's despicable actions, like a rat crossing the street, will inevitably be ridiculed by the international community... Lai Ching-te's disregard for the safety of the people and his wanton deception of the public will surely be spurned by the vast majority of Taiwanese compatriots. The so-called 'diplomatic achievements' that Lai Ching-te painstakingly fabricated are nothing but trickery and a laughing stock," the body charged.

Lai pushed back, writing on X that Taiwan "will never be deterred by external pressures," adding that the island "will continue to engage with the world – no matter the challenges faced."

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council also hit back, branding Beijing's rebuke "fishwife's gutter talk" which it said was "boring in the extreme."

China considers Taiwan a part of its sovereign territory. While Beijing has said it seeks peaceful reunification with the island, it signaled in 2022 that it "would not renounce the use of force" to accomplish this goal.