House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet with Taiwan’s president in California next month – rather than a sit-down in Taipei – to avoid provoking China amid high tensions between Beijing and Washington.
President Tsai Ing-wen and McCarthy are expected to meet in Simi Valley, California in April, Reuters reported on Monday. The first female president of Taiwan has been invited to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library during a stop on a planned visit to Central America.
McCarthy’s office didn’t respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
The meeting would come amid as relations between the U.S. and China have gotten worse in the wake of the spy balloon China sent over the U.S. and reports Xi Jinping is considering lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California (left) will meet Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (right) in California next month instead of traveling to Taiwan
Also, there were concerns Beijing could elevate its military response if McCarthy traveled to the island. In the past week, China has sent warplanes and warships toward Taiwan and the U.S. has responded by giving Tsai’s government ammunition for its fighter jets.
The White House declined to comment, saying no visit to the U.S. has been announced by Tsai’s government.
‘I don’t believe Taiwan has announced any travel for the president of Taiwan,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Monday’s press briefing.
‘Taiwan’s presidents have traveled to the United States in the past. So I would refer you to Taiwan for anything specific on that. And certainly I would refer you to the Speaker’s office, any potential meeting that he may be having with the president,’ she said.
McCarthy, a Republican from California, has said several times he wanted to travel to Taiwan as Nancy Pelosi did when she was speaker.
But he agreed to meet Tsai in the U.S. because of Taiwanese security concerns, Financial Times reported.
A senior Taiwanese official told the outlet that Tsai’s administration had provided McCarthy’s team with ‘some intelligence about what the Chinese Communist party is recently up to and the kinds of threats they pose.’
The official added that China was ‘not in a good situation.’
The Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan, a democratically-ruled island of 24 million people, as part of its sovereign territory despite never having controlled it.
If the McCarthy and Tsai meeting in California does take place it doesn’t necessarily mean the speaker won’t travel to Taiwan – but it does lower the odds.
McCarthy, in an interview with CNBC on Monday, declined to answer whether he would visit Taiwan, saying he would announce any travel plans when he had them.
China recently sent 25 warplanes and three warships toward Taiwan and the U.S. responded by giving the island missiles for its F-16s
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has been invited to make a speech at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California (above) and McCarthy could meet her there
Tsai has visited the United States in the past. It’s common for Taiwanese officials to make stopovers in the U.S. as part of other trips although Washington is usually careful about who it sends to meet with them to avoid angering China.
The U.S., like many other countries, does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but is bound by U.S. law to provide it with the means to defend itself.
Washington has long used a policy of ‘strategic ambiguity,’ meaning it does not make clear whether it would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.
However, President Joe Biden has, on four occasions over the past four years, said the U.S. would intervene if China launched an unprovoked attack on the island.
Recently, Biden’s administration approved an estimated $619 million potential arms sale to Taiwan, including hundreds of missiles for F-16 fighter jets, after China sent 25 warplanes and three warships toward the island.
But the Chinese vehicles did not cross the sensitive median line of the Taiwan Strait, which previously served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides.
No shots have been fired and the Chinese aircraft have been flying in Taiwan’s ADIZ, not in its territorial air space.
The ADIZ is a broader area Taiwan monitors and patrols that acts to give it more time to respond to any threats.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi in her car arriving at her hotel in Taipei, where she was cheered on by locals, during her August 2022 trip to Taiwan
Relations between Beijing and Washington are at a low point over China’s actions toward the Taiwan, its aggressive trade policies, and its actions in the South China Sea.
Pelosi, a Democrat, visited Taiwan and met Tsai last year, defying warnings from China, which launched military drills around the island in response.
Beijing was furious. Chinese officials called the visit a ‘violation of the one-China principle.’
She was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island in 25 years.
Biden’s administration tried to tamp down the situation, saying repeatedly that Pelosi made an independent decision to go to Taiwan.
But China staged war games surrounding the island simulating a blockade and fired missiles over it into the Pacific Ocean.
