by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will meet Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a summit China called a “provocation.”
McCarthy’s office announced Monday that the House speaker will host a bipartisan meeting with Tsai at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. McCarthy’s announcement did not specify which other members of Congress will attend the meeting. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi, the Armed Services Committee’s minority leader, said in a statement Friday that other Republicans could join the meeting, including Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisconsin, who heads a select committee on the Chamber on Porcelain.
Taiwan is a self-governing democratic island that China claims as its territory. Speaking before his departure last week, Tsai said his government “would not relent or provoke.” But before Tsai’s trip to the United States, the Chinese government said a meeting with McCarthy would be a “provocation” and threatened retaliation.
US officials, by contrast, say that visits and meetings with high-level Taiwanese officials are routine. John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman said last week that Tsai met with US officials and made public appearances in “all previous transits.”
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, DN.Y., the top Democrat in the House, met quietly with Tsai in New York on Thursday. A Jeffries spokesman declined to comment on the meeting.
Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a longtime China hawk, visited Taiwan last August, prompting China to respond by launching live-fire military exercises.
Taiwan said last week there were no signs of a change to China’s usual military deployment in the area, which has included sending fighter jets to the island on an almost daily basis.
Yale professor Arne Westad, an expert on Chinese history, said he expects a “relatively strong reaction” from Beijing. Relations between the United States and China, the world’s strongest superpowers, are the worst in 40 years, he added.
Westad said he thought the United States should support the “security and viability” of Taiwan, but questioned whether provoking China was the best way to go.
“I think the United States has a definite interest, as do many other countries, in making sure that Taiwan is more secure and actually better able to defend itself against a possible attack by the PRC,” Westad said, referring to China’s official statement. name, the People’s Republic of China. “But I’m not convinced that having meetings that the PRC considers highly provocative at this time is the right way to go.”
Westad said he feared the provocations would make it less likely that the United States and China could keep the peace if a crisis brings them closer to war. “There is a solution, and that solution is the status quo,” he said. “It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s the only solution that has the potential to prevent war in Taiwan.”
