House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Wednesday said his meeting with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen provided “greater peace and stability for the world,” even as China has lodged objections and warned of escalating tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
McCarthy spoke to reporters following a meeting with Tsai at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Los Angeles, which was attended by more than a dozen Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
The Speaker said the bipartisan delegation underscored Congressional unity in supporting Taiwan’s ability to defend its democratic government against threats from the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing to overtake the island.
“I felt our meeting today provided a greater peace and stability for the world. America’s support for the people of Taiwan will remain resolute, unwavering and bipartisan,” the Speaker said, adding that his message to Beijing is that “there’s no need for retaliation.”
Chinese officials have blasted McCarthy’s meeting with Tsai, warning of countermeasures and consequences. Its embassy in Washington sent an email to lawmakers warning that such meetings signal a “serious political provocations.”
China has also responded angrily to reports that McCarthy is planning to visit Taiwan, like his predecessor former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did last year.
McCarthy said Wednesday that while he has no plans to travel to Taiwan, he would not be intimidated from making the trip.
“That doesn’t mean I will not go,” he said. “I am the Speaker of the House. There is no place that China is going to tell me where I can go or who I can speak to, whether you be foe or whether you be friend.”
Tsai visited Los Angeles from Tuesday to Wednesday in what is being described as a “transit” for the Taiwanese leader back to Taiwan and from official diplomatic summits in Guatemala and Belize.
The careful language provides a thin cover for Tsai to hold senior meetings with U.S. officials without appearing to violate the principles of Washington’s unofficial relations with Taiwan.
Speaking alongside McCarthy after their meeting, Tsai said “to preserve peace, we must be strong,” and “we are stronger when we are together,” according to Reuters.
“It is no secret that today the peace we have maintained and the democracy which we have worked hard to build are facing unprecedented challenges,” she said.
“We once again find ourselves in a world where democracy is under threat and the urgency of keeping the beacon of freedom shining cannot be understated.”
McCarthy said that lawmakers spoke with Tsai about speeding up delivery of weapons to Taiwan that the Biden administration says are delayed by a number of factors coming to a head — dormant manufacturing lines, supply chain issues leftover from the COVID-19 pandemic, among others.
The speaker also said that there were conversations about building more trade ties between the U.S. and Taiwan.
“That is what we’re doing today. So when you look back on history, in a critical time around the world what did your lawmakers do? They stood up. They built relationships to friend and foe. They deterred the ability for one to foster war against the other,” the speaker said.
The Taiwanese leader also reportedly met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and a bipartisan group of senators in New York last week.
Still, the California meeting marks a historic moment in how the U.S. is shifting its policy toward Taiwan, with the Biden administration and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle raising alarm and working to bolster support to the island to help it deter, and prepare against, a possible invasion by China.
McCarthy became the most senior-elected U.S. official to meet with Tsai on U.S. soil, a distinction that Chinese officials have railed against.
“China firmly opposes the U.S.’s arrangement for Tsai Ing-wen’s ‘transit’ trip to the US and a meeting between her and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the third highest-ranking official of the U.S. government,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said on Tuesday.
Some analysts have suggested that McCarthy’s meeting in California provided a compromise to traveling to Taiwan to avoid escalating higher tensions with China.
Beijing carried out live-fire military exercises around the island in retaliation for a visit in August by Pelosi, who issued an endorsement for McCarthy’s meeting with Tsai.
“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,” she said in a statement.