China fumes over Taiwan president’s visit to US
Tom Rogan
Video Embed
President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan will visit the East and West coasts of the United States next week, with a meeting between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Tsai likely.
China is not happy.
Viewing Tsai as an insurrectionist pretender who holds unjust control of a breakaway Chinese province, Beijing sees her U.S. engagements as an affront to its sovereignty. It laments the bolstered stature that Tsai’s trip will bring to Taiwan and any strengthening of relations between the U.S. and the island democracy. With many U.S. military and intelligence analysts believing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan may occur by the end of this decade, the stakes are significant. Reflecting the Communist Party’s ire over Tsai’s U.S. travels, a spokesperson for China’s office on Taiwan affairs warned Tsai to “behave herself.” The spokesperson pledged that any McCarthy meeting would lead Beijing to “take measures to resolutely hit back.”
Such measures would likely take a similar form to the air and naval exercises around Taiwan by the People’s Liberation Army that followed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) visit to the island last August.
An editorial in Beijing’s foreign-facing Global Times newspaper added that when it came to any response to a Tsai-McCarthy meeting, “the form and degree of the counterattack will depend on the specific circumstances, and the initiative is in our own hands.”
This rhetoric should be seen as Beijing’s signaling to Washington to keep any meeting as low-profile as possible. With Tsai rumored to make an address from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, however, it seems that high-profile might end up being the order of the day. As with Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year, the White House has limited means of getting the speaker of the House to do its bidding. Nevertheless, any joint public events between McCarthy and Tsai (or associated pledges between the two) would probably be seen by Beijing as the worst-case scenario.
While it’s highly unlikely that this visit will precipitate a deliberate act of force against Taiwanese interests by China, a PLA military overflight of the island is feasible if Beijing becomes enraged. We’ll just have to see how next week’s visit plays out.