China Fumes as McCarthy Defies Warnings to Meet Taiwan President

China said on Thursday it would "take strong and resolute measures" in response to a historic meeting a day earlier between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan.

"Through the past few days, in disregard of China's serious representations and repeated warnings, the United States deliberately greenlighted the transit of Tsai Ing-wen, leader of the Taiwan region, through the United States," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Beijing claims Taiwan as its own under its "one China principle." The U.S., which broke off formal diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979, maintains robust but unofficial relations with the island democracy under its own "one China policy," which recognizes the legitimacy of the Chinese government without endorsing its territorial claim to neighboring Taiwan.

Tsai's meeting with McCarthy on Wednesday took place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in southern California, in the Republican leader's home state. He was the most senior American elected official to host a Taiwanese leader on U.S. soil in more than 40 years.

In subsequent remarks to the press, Tsai said decades of peace and democracy now faced "unprecedented challenges." In her talks with congressional leaders, including 17 other members of the House, she "reiterated Taiwan's commitment to defending the peaceful status quo, where the people of Taiwan may continue to thrive in a free and open society."

For Taiwan, the status quo means a continued existence as a semi-recognized state, free from the Communist Party's jurisdiction. For China, it means an indefinite postponement of its goal to unify both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and potential wiggle room for the island's formal independence in the future—a red line.

"Instead of reining in separatist rhetoric and activities in Taiwan for 'Taiwan independence,' Tsai has supported and encouraged them, and sought to push for 'incremental independence' under various pretenses," said China's Foreign Ministry. "This has put cross-strait relations in serious difficulty."

"In response to the egregiously wrong action taken by the United States and Taiwan, China will take strong and resolute measures to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity," it added.

Taiwan's Foreign Ministry this week called the repeated criticism "increasingly absurd." Only the island's 23.5 million people can decide its future, the Taiwanese government says.

Successive Chinese leaders have refused to renounce the use of force against Taiwan. In recent years, Beijing has stepped up its coercive measures across the spectrum—military, political and economic—to deter sentiments of independence and compel favorable negotiations.

Tsai was conducting the seventh U.S. transit of her presidency as part of state visits to Guatemala and Belize. Taipei has only 13 formal partners around the world amid a tightening squeeze by Beijing that Washington is trying to stem.

The White House has for weeks played down the significance of Tsai's presence in New York last week and her arrival in Los Angeles late on Tuesday. Biden administration officials repeatedly argued that Congress, as a co-equal branch of government, has a right to engage with whom it pleases, but China disagrees.

"The Congress, as a part of the U.S. government, is obligated to strictly abide by the foreign policy that the latter has adopted and committed to," the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement in response to the meeting.

"House Speaker McCarthy is the third-ranking official in the U.S. government. His meeting with Tsai Ing-wen on U.S. territory is a grave mistake that elevates the official interactions and substantive relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan," it said.

"In the past few days, Chinese communities in different areas of the United States have voluntarily gathered and held protests and demonstrations to express their strong opposition to Tsai Ing-wen's 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities, which reflects the overwhelming will of Chinese people at home and abroad," according to the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles, where Tsai spent two nights.

Taiwanese intelligence officials said members of the Chinese diaspora in New York were paid $200 a day to protest against Tsai's visit. The daily rate was raised to $400 for those willing to disrupt her meeting with McCarthy, they said.

Policymakers Converge

At a press conference outside the Reagan Library, McCarthy acknowledged the rarity of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill and said both Republicans and Democrats were united in their support for Taiwan.

"We live in a decisive moment in history and must act with urgency. Tensions in the world are at the highest point since the end of the Cold War as authoritarian leaders seek to use violence and fear to provoke needless conflict," the GOP leader said.

"America's support for the people of Taiwan will remain resolute, unwavering and bipartisan," he said.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House panel on China, said: "We support our friends in Taiwan. We're going to keep saying that whenever we have the opportunity, and we're going to turn those words into action this Congress—bipartisan action—because Taiwan is a small but very bright candle burning at the edge of a vast authoritarian darkness."

"Taiwan deserves to be free. Taiwan's people deserve freedom, and they have earned that right," said Democrat Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the committee's ranking member. "To our strategic competitors in the CCP, we say to them with one voice: We do not want war. We don't want a cold war, we don't want a hot war, we don't want any hostilities whatsoever."

"We want peace; we are a peace-loving people. But we want a durable peace, and we must deter aggression at all costs. We must peacefully resolve all differences between and among us at the bargaining table," Krishnamoorthi said.

The China select committee had a sizable presence at the meeting with Taiwan's president, its members representing 10 of the 18 lawmakers on the U.S. side of the table. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who also sits on the panel, was among other members of Congress who attended a separate banquet with Tsai in the evening.

A committee spokesperson told Newsweek that China's Embassy contacted several members to demand their withdrawal from Wednesday's talks.

"The Chinese Communist Party must never be given a veto on who America's elected representatives meet with," Gallagher told Newsweek in a written statement. "By meeting with President Tsai, our bipartisan delegation, led by Speaker McCarthy, is standing up to the bullies in the CCP. We will not be intimidated."

The Chinese Embassy said in an emailed response that it "stressed multiple times our firm opposition to any form of official interaction or contact between the U.S. and Taiwan authorities." It added: "On Tsai Ing-wen's so-called 'transit,' the Chinese side has expressed strong opposition and launched demarches via multiple channels to the U.S. side."

California Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a long-time China critic whose high-profile visit to Taipei as sitting House speaker last August was followed by Beijing's war games around Taiwan, said in a public statement: "Today's meeting between President Tsai of Taiwan and Speaker McCarthy is to be commended for its leadership, its bipartisan participation and its distinguished and historic venue."

China's response so far to the McCarthy-Tsai summit has been relatively restrained, although Taiwan said Thursday it was watching the movements of nearby Chinese warships. Beijing's reaction could be related to an ongoing private visit to China by Taiwan's former President Ma Ying-jeou, or Tsai's decision to hold the talks in America instead of Taiwan.

President Emmanuel Macron of France and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, arrived in China on Wednesday for talks with Chinese leaders including President Xi Jinping. Their presence could make a large-scale show of force inconvenient at this time, but they both depart on April 7.

McCarthy told reporters there was "no need for retaliation" from Beijing and didn't rule out leading a bipartisan delegation to Taipei in the future: "I don't have any current plans, but that doesn't mean I will not go."

"I am the speaker of the House. There's no place that China's gonna tell me where I can go or who I can speak to," he said.

Also on Thursday, eight members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Republican chair Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, landed in Taipei for their own three-day visit as part of a swing through East Asia. They will meet with senior Taiwanese officials including Tsai, who returns to Taiwan on Friday.

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