LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is set to meet U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday in the first such meeting on U.S. soil, drawing threats of retaliation from China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own.
China staged war games around Taiwan last August following the visit to Taipei of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Taiwan’s defence ministry said a Chinese aircraft carrier group was in the waters off the island’s southeast coast ahead of the meeting between Tsai and McCarthy in California.
In Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told a news conference there was nothing new about a Taiwanese president transiting through the United States and Beijing should not use it as an excuse to take any action or ratchet up tensions.
McCarthy, a Republican who through his House position is number three in the U.S. leadership hierarchy, was due to host Tsai on Wednesday morning at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, near Los Angeles.
It will be the highest-level meeting with a Taiwanese president on U.S. soil since Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
It is sure to draw a strong reaction from Beijing, which considers Taiwan part of its territory and has vowed to bring it under its control, by force if necessary.
The visit to Taipei of McCarthy’s Democratic predecessor provoked a furious response from China, which fired missiles over Taiwan and cut military contacts with Washington.
China has repeatedly warned against a meeting between McCarthy and Tsai, who is on her first U.S. stopover since 2019, although some analysts expect its reaction to be more moderate than that to Pelosi’s Taipei visit.
A meeting in California is seen as a potentially less provocative alternative to McCarthy visiting Taiwan, something he has said he hopes to do.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said the Chinese carrier group was headed for training in the Western Pacific and Taiwanese naval and air forces and land-based radar systems closely monitored them.
It said the ships, led by the carrier the Shandong, passed through the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines and then into waters to Taiwan’s southeast.
China has sailed its aircraft carriers near to Taiwan before and at similarly sensitive times. It has yet to comment on the carrier group, whose appearance also coincided with the arrival in Beijing of French President Emmanuel Macron.
In March of last year, the Shandong sailed through the Taiwan Strait just hours before the Chinese and U.S. presidents were due to talk.
Tsai transited through New York last week en route to Central America to visit two of Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic partners, Guatemala and Belize.
Washington called on China not to overreact, portraying Tsai’s stopovers as routine and a normal part of its unofficial relationship with Taiwan.
However, the United States, which is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, has stepped up interactions with Taipei in recent years as Beijing’s pressure on the island has increased.
Xu Xueyuan, charge d’affaires at China’s Washington embassy, said last week that McCarthy meeting Tsai “could lead to another serious confrontation in the China-U.S. relationship”. On Tuesday China’s foreign ministry said it would “closely monitor” the meeting and “resolutely defend” Chinese sovereignty.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told a regular news briefing on Tuesday that Tsai’s transit was “private” and “unofficial.”
“President Tsai herself has made this transit about six times before and again there should be no reason for China to overreact,” she said, adding there had been no change to the U.S. “One-China” policy that recognizes Beijing diplomatically not Taipei.
Since Pelosi’s visit, U.S.-Chinese relations have deteriorated to what some say is their worst level since 1979.
February saw the dramatic shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that drifted over U.S. territory, and fears have only grown that Beijing may eventually be emboldened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to move militarily against Taiwan.
(Reporting by Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; editing by Don Durfee, Lincoln Feast and Mark Heinrich)