LOS ANGELES (NewsNation) — Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy defied China’s threats by meeting with Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwanese politician and president of the Republic of China, in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
More than a dozen Democratic and Republican lawmakers, including the House’s third-ranking Democrat, joined Republican McCarthy for the talks at Southern California’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, against a backdrop of rising tensions between the U.S. and China.
McCarthy said he wanted the Taiwan president to see that “this is a bipartisan meeting of members of Congress,” not any one political party.
“We will continue to find ways for the people of America and Taiwan to work together to promote economic freedom, democracy, peace and stability in Asia,” the House speaker said.
China views Taiwan as its own territory and treats any dealings between U.S. and Taiwanese officials as a challenge to its sovereignty. Ing-wen’s tour is a bid to demonstrate that her government has international support.
The meeting with McCarthy was very politically sensitive, especially following former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan last year, which was met with threats and scrutiny from China.
The U.S. House speaker is second in line of succession to the president. No speaker is known to have met with a Taiwan president on U.S. soil since the U.S. broke off formal diplomatic relations in 1979 when formally establishing diplomatic relations with the Beijing government.
China has reacted to past trips by Taiwanese presidents through the U.S., and to past trips to Taiwan by senior U.S. officials, with shows of military force. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was more dramatic than Ing-wen’s visit to the U.S.
“This is clearly different than when Speaker Pelosi traveled last summer and actually visited Taipei,” Esper said.
“It sends a very important message of support to Taiwan and asserts the fact that American officials will meet whoever they want, wherever they want, and that we will support Taiwan,” Esper said.
But China is the one which keeps threatening some kind of retaliation, Esper explained.
The Biden administration insists there is nothing provocative about this visit by Ing-wen, which is the latest of a half-dozen.
“The first thing to emphasize is that these transits by high-level Taiwanese authorities are nothing new,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Wednesday during travel in Europe. “They are private, they are unofficial, but they are nothing new.”
The U.S.’s longstanding “one-China” policy acknowledges that the Chinese claim Taiwan as their territory. However, the U.S. does not endorse that claim and remains Taiwan’s most important provider of military hardware and other defense assistance.
China has repeatedly asserted its claim to Taiwan, though Taiwan maintains its own democratic system of government since the sides split after a civil war in 1949.
However, Esper said it’s China that’s actually trying to change the rules of the game, and trying to up the ante through military exercises through threats of retaliation. He explained China is trying to unilaterally change the status quo, which the U.S. always said it would not tolerate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.