Lai currently 'has no plans' to travel overseas: Presidential Office

Taipei, Aug. 3 (CNA) The Presidential Office on Saturday denied a local media report suggesting that President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) was planning to travel overseas soon.

"The President currently has no plans for overseas visits," Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement, adding that "any such arrangement will be reported to the public in due time."

The statement was in response to the report by local media United Daily News earlier Saturday saying that Lai was planning to travel to Taiwan's diplomatic allies in late August or early September and make stopovers in the United States.

Kuo said it was "regrettable" that the report contained "false" descriptions and "much speculation," and she called on the news media to not print "distorted" stories and "mislead the public."

The report speculated that Lai is likely to visit the South American nation Paraguay and that how the president's stopovers in the U.S. are conducted could shake up trilateral relations between Taiwan, the U.S., and China.

The Presidential Office's statement, however, was a departure from comments made by Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in July, when he told local reporters that his ministry was planning Lai's first visit to diplomatic allies after taking office in May.

Nothing has been finalized, Lin stressed at a press conference on July 10, adding that the ministry was still assessing whether Lai should make stopovers on American soil at a time when the U.S. presidential race was heating up.

Despite a lack of formal diplomatic relations between Taiwan and the U.S., Washington has over the years allowed Taiwanese presidents to make stopovers in the U.S. during their trips to visit Taiwan's diplomatic allies.

How they were received in the U.S. was often interpreted by the media as a sign of how Washington wanted to handle its relations with Taipei.