WASHINGTON/TAIPEI - Taiwan’s navy chief, Admiral Tang Hua, will visit the United States from next week to attend a military ceremony and discuss how to boost bilateral naval cooperation as China raises threats towards the island, six people briefed on the trip said.

While Taiwan and the US have a close relationship, it is unofficial, as Washington formally recognises China.

The six security sources said Adm Tang will visit Hawaii, home of the US Indo-Pacific Command, for a Pacific Fleet change of command ceremony.

Three of them said Adm Tang was then expected to attend the April 8 to 10 Sea-Air-Space conference near Washington and that talks were under way to arrange a meeting with the US Chief of Naval Operations, Adm Lisa Franchetti.

The sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, given the trip’s sensitivity.

Taiwan’s navy and the Pentagon declined to comment.

China’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. China’s Foreign Ministry said it firmly opposed “military collusion” between the US and Taiwan, and that Washington should “refrain from sending out any erroneous signal to the forces of secession for the independence of Taiwan”.

Unlike visits to the US by senior officials from allies like Japan and Britain, conducted openly, those of Taiwanese officials, especially military ones, are kept low-key and often not officially confirmed.

Washington and Taipei have had no official diplomatic or military relationship since 1979, when the US switched recognition to Beijing, though the US is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

China regards the self-governing Taiwan as its territory to be reunified with. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims.

Taiwan’s navy is dwarfed by that of China, which is adding nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

Under a modernisation effort President Tsai Ing-wen has overseen, Taiwan is developing its own submarines, the first of which was unveiled in 2023.

Without fanfare, Taiwan and the US have expanded their military cooperation since Ms Tsai took office in 2016, especially since China began ramping up military pressure over the past four years.

Beijing now regularly sends fighter jets over the median line of the Taiwan Strait that once served as an unofficial barrier.

Previous US trips by senior Taiwan officers to the US have included then navy chief Lee Hsi-ming in 2015 and Deputy Defence Minister Hsu Yen-pu, who in 2023 attended a Taiwan-US defence industry conference in Virginia.

Taiwan typically holds annual security talks in the US, which neither government officially confirms and which in 2023 were attended by Taiwan’s foreign minister and the head of its National Security Council, according to Taiwanese media.

Adm Tang’s visit, two sources said, is part of a US effort, called the Joint Island Defence Concept, to coordinate with Taiwan, Japan and others to counter China’s armed forces within the “first island chain” – a string enclosing China’s coastal seas that connects Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo, an island split between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Taiwan and the US are trying to line up a Tang-Franchetti meeting, which has not been confirmed, said one source, a US official.

Adm Tang on March 26 accompanied Ms Tsai to a navy base on Taiwan’s east coast for a handover ceremony for two new Tuo Chiang-class corvette warships, which Taiwan’s navy calls “carrier killers” for their high manoeuvrability, stealth and anti-ship missiles. REUTERS