US House speaker meets Taiwan president despite China’s threats

SIMI VALLEY, United States: US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met Taiwan´s president in California on Wednesday for talks that have already prompted outrage and dire warnings from China.

The Republican leader shook hands warmly with Tsai Ing-wen, on what is technically a stop-over after her two-country trip to Latin America to visit Taiwan´s few remaining official diplomatic allies.

Duelling demonstrations from both pro-Beijing and pro-Taipei camps gathered at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley for Tsai´s arrival. Beijing claims Taiwan as its own territory and balks at any official contact Taipei has with other countries.

This week, it warned McCarthy, a California native who is second in line to the US presidency, that he was “playing with fire” by meeting Tsai. “China is strongly opposed to the US arranging for Tsai Ing-wen to transit through its territory, and is strongly opposed to the meeting between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the third-ranking US official, and Tsai Ing-wen,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters.

“It seriously violates the One-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, and seriously undermines China´s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Taiwan, a flourishing democracy, has been self-governing for decades. It has its own military, an independent judiciary and all the trappings of a fully functioning state.

But only a handful of countries acknowledge it as a sovereign nation. The United States formally recognises Beijing, but is an important backer of Taiwan, and maintains strong unofficial ties.

Taipei enjoys bipartisan support in the US Congress, and has grown closer to Washington under Tsai´s leadership -- much to China´s annoyance. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played down the significance of Tsai´s stop in California, and cautioned Beijing against using it as an “excuse to ratchet up tensions.”

“These transits by high level Taiwanese authorities are nothing new,” he told reporters in Brussels, where he was meeting with Nato foreign ministers. Last year, McCarthy´s predecessor, Democrat Nancy Pelosi sparked fury in Beijing by becoming the most senior US politician to visit the island in over two decades.