TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te welcomed what he called the “largest-ever” delegation of foreign lawmakers to Taiwan and said Tuesday it showed the importance of democracies uniting, even as Beijing pressured members of the delegation not to visit.
“This demonstrates the support and the value various other countries place on Taiwan,” Lai said. “It also sends an important message to democratic countries around the world. Maintaining democracy requires unity, and we must protect democracy together."
Lai made his remarks at a conference in Taipei held by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing.
Beijing views the self-governed island democracy as part of its territory and has been upping its threats to annex it by force if necessary. Lai’s party, the Democratic Progressive Party, doesn’t seek independence from China because he believes that Taiwan is already a sovereign nation.
Beijing sees Lai as a separatist and refuses to speak with him. China has ramped up pressure against the island since Lai took office in May, sending ships and planes on a large military drill to show displeasure at his inauguration. That comes after years of Beijing's pressure on Taiwan — which has been ruled by the DPP for three terms now — on diplomatic, military and economic fronts.
Lai said at the conference that Taiwan would work with other democracies to protect democracy from "the threat of authoritarian expansionism.”
“China’s threat to any country is a threat to the whole world,” Lai told conference participants. China “uses diplomatic kidnapping, economic coercion, internet attacks, and spreading false and fake things to continuously muddle matters and seek to undermine regional peace and stability.”
Lai’s comments come as IPAC is under renewed scrutiny from Beijing. Lawmakers from at least six countries told The AP earlier this week that Chinese diplomats were pressuring them not to attend the conference, in what they described as efforts to isolate the self-governed island.
IPAC has long been despised by the Chinese government: Some members have been sanctioned by Beijing, and in 2021 the group was targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed earlier this year.
In a written statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said IPAC “has no credibility at all” and repeated its stance that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory.
“China firmly opposes any form of official exchanges between countries with diplomatic ties with China and the Taiwan authorities,” the statement said.
Lai, also known by his English name William, is reviled by Beijing for his staunch opposition to political unification with the mainland. Earlier in his career, Lai said he was a "pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence,” but has since softened his rhetoric, saying he supports maintaining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
Beijing prevents countries it has diplomatic relations with from having formal ties with Taipei. China has been peeling off the island’s diplomatic allies, often with promises of development aid, in a long-running competition between the two that has swung in Beijing’s favor in recent years. The Pacific Island nation of Nauru switched recognition to Beijing earlier this year, a move that reduced Taiwan’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies to 12.
Since Lai took office in May, tensions have continued to simmer in the region.
The U.S. has been aiding in the upgrading of Taiwan’s equipment and training, with the U.S. State Department approving the sale to Taiwan of missiles and drones for an estimated $360 million last month. In April, the House of Representatives approved an $8 billion military aid package for Taiwan.
In late June, Beijing's top court issued guidance saying the death penalty could be used against “hardcore” Taiwan independence supporters. In response, Taipei urged its citizens to avoid traveling to China and the semi-autonomous Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macao.
Top diplomats from the U.S., Japan, India and Australia met in Tokyo this week to discuss security issues in the Indo-Pacific region, shortly after the U.S. and Japan held their “2+2” security meeting Sunday, where they called China “the greatest strategic challenge.”
High on the agenda were Taiwan and cross-strait relations. Beijing’s escalating assertiveness in the South China Sea has triggered tensions with many neighbors, adding to fears of a confrontation.
Lai has vowed to continue maintaining stability with China while beefing up Taiwan’s security by importing military equipment, expanding its defense industry, and reinforcing regional partnerships with unofficial allies such as the U.S., Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
“We are willing to replace confrontation with dialogue and containment with exchanges under the principles of reciprocity and dignity,” Lai told participants. “We will communicate with China to reduce conflicts and achieve peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
Associated Press journalist Johnson Lai contributed to this report.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, center left, poses for photos at a gathering of the largest delegation of foreign lawmakers to visit Taiwan in Taipei, Taiwan Tuesday, July 30, 2024. The delegation by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, is a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing. Lai told attendees that their participation showed the importance of democratic unity, even as Beijing put pressure on lawmakers not to attend the conference. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, center, poses for photos at a gathering of the largest delegation of foreign lawmakers to visit Taiwan in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. The delegation by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, is a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing. Lai told attendees that their participation showed the importance of democratic unity, even as Beijing put pressure on lawmakers not to attend the conference. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, center, arrives to speak at a gathering of the largest delegation of foreign lawmakers to visit Taiwan in Taipei, Taiwan on Tuesday, July 30, 2024. The delegation by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, is a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing. Lai told attendees that their participation showed the importance of democratic unity, even as Beijing put pressure on lawmakers not to attend the conference. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
FILE - Taiwan President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech as he inspects Taiwanese military in Taoyuan, Northern Taiwan, Thursday, May 23, 2024. Lai welcomed what he called the “largest-ever” delegation of foreign lawmakers to Taiwan and said Tuesday, July 30, it showed the importance of democracies uniting, even as Beijing pressured members of the delegation not to visit. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump wasn’t harmed in Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt as he golfed near his Florida club. But the second attack on his life in barely two months is likely to further unsettle an election cycle already marked by upheaval.
The man suspected in the incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, camped outside the golf course in West Palm Beach with food and a rifle for nearly 12 hours, according to court documents filed Monday. He is accused of lying in wait for the former president before a Secret Service agent opened fire, thwarting the potential attack.
Here are five things to know about what happened and where the investigation stands:
Routh, 58, faces charges of possessing a firearm despite a prior felony conviction and of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Additional charges are possible.
The suspect lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving in 2018 to Kaaawa, Hawaii. He and his son operated a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.
Routh appeared briefly in federal court in West Palm Beach on Monday. He had frequently posted on social media about the war in Ukraine and had a website where he sought to raise money and recruit volunteers to go to Kyiv to join the fight against the Russian invasion.
“Fight and die to stop aggression,” he posted on X in February 2023 about Ukraine. “Everyone should be outraged and helping.” In a video circulating online Routh said, “This is about good versus evil.”
He also wrote separately on X, “I am going to fight and die for Ukraine,” and he even traveled there.
Video shot by The Associated Press showed Routh at a small demonstration in Kyiv’s Independence Square in April 2022, two months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of the country. A placard he was holding said: “We cannot tolerate corruption and evil for another 50+ years. End Russia for our kids.” Routh wore a blue vest with the U.S. flag on the back.
That same day, Routh also visited a makeshift memorial to “Foreigners killed by Putin.”
But Routh never served in the Ukrainian army or worked with its military, said Oleksandr Shahuri of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command.
Routh's politics, meanwhile, don't appear consistently aligned to one party or the other.
In June 2020, he offered a post on X directed at then-President Trump to say he would win reelection if he issued an executive order for the Justice Department to prosecute police misconduct. That year, he also posted in support of the Democratic presidential campaign of then-U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who has since left the party and endorsed Trump.
However, in recent years, his posts suggest he soured on Trump, and he expressed support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In July, following the assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, Routh urged Biden and Harris to visit those wounded in the shooting at the hospital and to attend the funeral of a former fire chief killed at the rally.
Voter records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. Federal campaign finance records show Routh made 19 small political donations totaling $140 since 2019 using his Hawaii address through a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.
Records show that while living in Greensboro, North Carolina, Routh had multiple run-ins with law enforcement. The top FBI official in the Miami, Jeffrey B. Veltri, said Routh has numerous felony charges for stolen goods between 1997 and 2010. He also was the subject of a closed investigation in 2019 when someone reported he was in possession of a firearm despite his felony convictions, but Veltri said the tipster would not confirm making the report.
Routh was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, according to online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records.
Authorities spotted a firearm poking out of shrubbery on the West Palm Beach golf course around 400 to 500 yards from where Trump was playing. As the former president was moving through the fifth hole's fairway, an agent who was visually sweeping the area of the sixth hole's green saw the subject, armed with what he perceived to be a rifle, and immediately discharged his firearm, said acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. of the U.S. Secret Service.
Rowe said Routh “did not have a line of sight to the former president” and did not fire at Secret Service agents before fleeing.
Routh sped away before being captured in a neighboring county. Body camera footage of Routh’s arrest showed him walking backward with his hands over his head on the side of a road before being handcuffed and led away.
The suspect is believed to have been positioned at the tree line of the golf course from about 1:59 a.m. to 1:31 p.m. Sunday. A digital camera, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a plastic bag containing food were recovered from the area.
Trump’s protective detail has been higher than some of his peers because of his high visibility and his campaign to seek the White House again. His security was bolstered days before the July 13 assassination attempt in Pennsylvania because of a threat on Trump’s life from Iran, U.S. officials said.
Trump initially posted, “I AM SAFE AND WELL!” and subsequently praised the Secret Service for protecting him.
But the former president pivoted Monday to the politics surrounding the incident, claiming — without evidence — that Biden and Harris comments that he is a threat to democracy had inspired the latest attempt on his life.
“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at," Trump told Fox News Digital. In a subsequent post on his social media site Monday, Trump wrote that the left “has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust.” He said “it will only get worse,” then veered into comments about immigration, even though there is no evidence immigrants were involved in the incident.
The former president made those comments despite his own long history of inflammatory campaign rhetoric and advocacy for jailing or prosecuting his political enemies.
Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in the presidential election, posted on X that she was "glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.”
Biden also avoided politics in his reaction. He said Monday that the Secret Service “needs more help” and urged Congress to provide additional resources to help the agency.
“America has suffered too many times the tragedy of an assassin’s bullet,” Biden said at the start of an address to the National HBCU Week Conference in Philadelphia. “It solves nothing. It just tears the country apart. We must do everything we can to prevent it and never give it any oxygen.”
Trump hasn't announced any changes to his schedule and spoke live on X on Monday night from his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Still, a presidential race already rocked by Biden giving up his reelection bid and the first attack on Trump now is being further shaped by a second one. The leaders of a congressional bipartisan task force investigating Trump's Pennsylvania shooting said they have requested a briefing by the Secret Service.
“We are thankful that the former President was not harmed, but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its forms,” Reps. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Jason Crow, D-Colo., said in a statement.
Weissert reported from Washington.
Ryan Wesley Routh holds up a banner during a rally in central Kyiv, Ukraine on Saturday April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
Photos that show an AK-47 rifle, a backpack and a Go-Pro camera on a fence outside Trump International Golf Club taken after an apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, are displayed during a news conference at the Palm Beach County Main Library, Sunday. Sept. 15, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Stephany Matat)
This photo provided by the Martin County Sheriff's Office shows Sheriff's vehicles surrounding an SUV on the northbound I-95 in Martin County on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff's Office via AP)
