China vowed retaliation against Taiwan on Thursday after a meeting between US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, saying the United States was on a “wrong and dangerous path”.
“China will take resolute and strong measures to resolutely defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, according to AFP.
She urged the United States “not to go further down a wrong and dangerous path,” according to the Associated Press.
By Thursday afternoon, there was no public sign of a large-scale military response as China had previously.
A statement issued by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Thursday morning referred to Tsai and her political party as “separatists”.
US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a show of US support for the self-ruled island, which China says is an integral part of its territory, along with a bipartisan delegation of more than a dozen US lawmakers.
The Biden administration said there was nothing provocative about Tsai’s visit, the latest of six visits to the United States, but it comes as relations between the United States and China have sunk to historic lows, with US support for Taiwan becoming one of the main points of difference between the two powers. .
But the formal trappings of the meeting, and the high rank of some of the elected officials in the congressional delegation, could lead China to view it as an escalation.
It was not previously known if any of the Speakers of the House of Representatives had met a President of Taiwan on American soil since the United States severed formal diplomatic relations with the island in 1979.
