BEIJING – China threatened Wednesday to retaliate if U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meets with Taiwan’s president during the leader’s trip to Los Angeles in another week.
President Tsai Ing-wen departed Taiwan Wednesday afternoon on a tour of the island’s allied countries in the Americas that she called an opportunity to demonstrate Taiwan’s commitment to democratic values on the world stage.
Tsai is scheduled to stop in New York on Thursday before heading to Guatemala and Belize. She is expected to stop in Los Angeles on her return trip to Taiwan on April 5, when she is scheduled to meet with McCarthy.
Plans for the meeting have raised fears of a strong reaction from China amid growing friction between Beijing and Washington over U.S. support for Taiwan and trade and human rights issues.
China Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian denounced Tsai’s scheduled stopovers and demanded that no U.S. officials meet with her.
“We strongly oppose this and will take resolute measures in response,” Zhu told a news conference. The United States should “refrain from arranging visits during Tsai Ing-wen’s transit and even putting her in contact with U.S. officials, and take concrete measures to fulfill its solemn commitment not to support Taiwan’s independence,” he added.
Beijing claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to forcibly subdue the self-ruled island if necessary.
Later Wednesday, Mao Ning, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said China will “closely monitor the development of the situation and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“The United States should stop claiming to establish protective measures for China-U.S. relations while carrying out dangerous activities that undermine the political foundation of bilateral ties,” Mao told reporters at a daily briefing.
McCarthy, R-California, has said he will meet with Tsai when she is in the United States and has not ruled out traveling to Taiwan as a show of support.
In 2022, following a visit to Taiwan by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Beijing launched missiles over the area, deployed warships that crossed the Taiwan Strait’s midline and conducted military exercises in a simulation of a blockade of the island. Beijing also suspended climate talks with the United States and restricted military-to-military communication with the Pentagon between the two nations.
“I want to tell everyone that democratic Taiwan will resolutely safeguard the values of freedom and democracy, and remain a force for good in the world, and continue a cycle of goodness, strengthening the resilience of democracy in the world,” Tsai told reporters before boarding her plane. “External pressure will not obstruct our resolve to engage with the world,” she added.
Beijing has recently stepped up its diplomatic pressure against Taiwan, snatching away several of Taipei’s dwindling diplomatic allies while sending military fighter jets toward the island almost daily. Earlier this month, Honduras established diplomatic relations with China, leaving Taiwan with just 13 countries that recognize it as a sovereign state.
U.S. government officials, in a teleconference with reporters prior to Tsai’s arrival, stressed that her trip is in tune with what she and her predecessors have done before.
During her presidency, Tsai has transited the U.S. six times, stops that have included meetings with members of Congress and the Taiwanese diaspora.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment on the sensitive visit, said Tsai is also expected to meet with the president of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Laura Rosenberger. The AIT is the U.S. government-run nonprofit organization that conducts unofficial relations with Taiwan.
An official added that “there is absolutely no reason” for Beijing to use Tsai’s scale “as an excuse or pretext to carry out aggressive or coercive activities aimed at Taiwan.”
Beijing sees official U.S. contacts with Taiwan as an encouragement to make permanent the island’s de facto independence, a step U.S. leaders have publicly said they do not support. Pelosi was the highest-ranking U.S. elected official to visit the island since then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997. Under the “One China” policy, the United States recognizes Beijing’s position that it has sovereignty over Taiwan, but considers Taiwan’s status as pending. Taipei is an important partner for Washington in the Indo-Pacific.
U.S. officials worry every time China tries to fulfill its long-stated goal of bringing Taiwan under its control. The two sides split in the midst of civil war in 1949 and Beijing sees visits by U.S. politicians as conspiring with Tsai’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party to make the separation permanent and hinder China’s rise as a world power.
The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with that government, does not require Washington to intervene militarily if China invades the island, but makes it U.S. policy to ensure that Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and prevent any unilateral change of status by Beijing.
Tensions escalated earlier this year when President Joe Biden ordered the downing of a Chinese spy balloon after it flew over the U.S. mainland. The Biden administration has also said that U.S. intelligence findings show China is weighing sending weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine, but has no evidence that Beijing has already done so.
However, China has provided Russia with an economic lifeline and political support, and President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in Moscow this month. That was the first face-to-face meeting between the two allies since before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.
The Biden administration postponed a planned visit to Beijing by its secretary of state, Antony Blinken, following the spy balloon controversy, but has indicated it would like to get those contacts back on track.
Mao, of the Chinese foreign ministry, said the blame for the tensions lies squarely on Washington for pushing relations with Tsai. Beijing has frozen almost all contacts with Tsai’s government since shortly after she was elected to the first of her two terms in 2016.
“It’s not that China overreacted. It’s that the U.S. kept emboldening Taiwan’s pro-independence forces, which is offensive in nature,” he said.
Tsai’s state visits coincide with a 12-day trip to China by her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou of the pro-unification Nationalist Party, in an appeal to voters whose descendants arrived in 1949 with the defeated forces of Chiang Kai-shek.
Ma has visited sites in the former Nationalist capital of Nanjing and emphasized the historical and cultural ties between the two sides, while avoiding the politically sensitive issues of China’s determination to eliminate Taiwan’s international presence and refusal to recognize its government.
Tsai is barred from seeking a third term and her party is widely expected to nominate Vice President Lai Ching-te to run for president in January.