China announced on Thursday that it would take a “resolute response” to “defend the national sovereignty and territorial integrity” of his country, a few hours after the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wenwas received in California by Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House of Representatives.
For weeks, the Xi Jinping government has alerted the US not to have the meeting, which it considers a provocation and interference in its internal affairs. China considers Taiwan, an island with a democratic government and which has been governed independently of the mainland communist regime for more than seven decades, as part of its sovereignty; The US does not officially recognize Taiwan as a country since the late 1970s, when it adhered to the ‘one China’ policy, but maintains strong trade relations and provides military support to its government.
It is not an official visit
“Our ties are stronger than at any other time in my life,” McCarthy said in a joint appearance with Tsai, held at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, the state the Republican representative represents. The Taiwanese president’s trip was sold not as an official visit, but as a stop on her return trip to Taiwan after she had passed through Guatemala and Belize.
Tsai thanked the presence of McCarthy and other legislators – both Republicans and Democrats – at the meeting: “It gives us a guarantee to the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated and that we are not alone.”
The meeting takes place in a context of growing rivalry between the US and China, in the midst of a greater rapprochement of the Xi government with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and after recent episodes of tension such as the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon in the territory US.
meeting in summer
The closest antecedent to the meeting between McCarthy and Tsai was last summer, when the predecessor of the speaker of the Lower House, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan, in the most important official US trip to the island in decades.
Then, China reacted with a show of force and aggressiveness: it organized the largest military maneuvers in its history in the vicinity of Taiwan.
Yesterday there had not yet been a similar response, but some movements. China had deployed three warships in the Taiwan Strait and had stepped up the use of coast guards in those waters.
The White House, which has not participated in the meeting between Tsai and McCarthy, warned China that it cannot use the visit as a “pretext” to pressure and attack Taiwan.
The visit in California has not been the only contact of the week. Yesterday, a delegation of US representatives from both parties arrived in Taiwan, led by Republican Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Being here sends a signal to the Chinese Communist Party that the US supports Taiwan and that we are going to strengthen Taiwan, and we want them to think twice before invading it,” he said.
