Taipei: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met a former US State Department official who is seen as a leading candidate for a position in the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned from diplomatic sources that President Tsai met Randall Schriver while she was in the US at the weekend, in the first confirmed contact between Tsai and a person with close ties to Mr Trump.

China, which sees Taiwan as its territory and has demanded the US continue to uphold the "one China" policy, strongly objected to Tsai's visit to the US. The meeting appears to signal that the incoming US administration will take a hard line against China, and could further escalate tensions between the two countries.

President Tsai and Schriver dined together and were joined by Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Centre at the Heritage Foundation, a US think tank.