The rebuke came after Lai Ching-te made a secret visit to Eswatini, the only African state which still recognizes the island as sovereign 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.…