Republican Kevin McCarthy, leader of the United States House of Representatives, received the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, in California on Wednesday.
The meeting comes amid an increasingly tense relationship between the United States and China over the status of Taiwan and other issues.
China opposes the meeting, pledging “strong countermeasures” should it take place. The Chinese military deployed an aircraft carrier off the coast of Taiwan for military exercises on Wednesday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said.
Several Democratic and Republican lawmakers were expected to join the meeting with Tsai at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, including Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House select committee on competition with the Chinese Communist Party.
“The friendship between the United States and the people of Taiwan has never been stronger,” McCarthy tweeted, welcoming the president.
In 1949, when Mao’s cohorts seized control of mainland China, their opponents fled to Taiwan and set up a government-in-exile. The United States recognized the Taipei government as China’s legitimate government until 1978, when it formally transferred recognition to Beijing and severed formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Since then, the United States has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” but President Biden stunned last year when he said the United States would send troops to help defend Taiwan “if there were indeed an unprecedented attack” by China, while emphasizing that the island “makes its own judgments about its independence.”
The White House denied that the statement represented a change in US policy.
Tsai has made clear that Taiwan is an independent entity, and McCarthy’s visit comes at the end of a high-profile diplomatic trip to the United States to bolster support for the island.
McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan last year, a move that drew a reaction from Beijing.
Pro-Beijing and Taipei protesters rallied around the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley for the arrival of Tsai Ing-wen, who has just finished a diplomatic tour of Belize and Guatemala.
