President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was yesterday set to become the first Taiwanese president to meet with a US House of Representatives speaker on US soil, as she was scheduled to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Tsai arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after visiting New York, Guatemala and Belize.
She was scheduled to meet with McCarthy at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley at 10am, McCarthy’s office said.
Photo: CNA
Tsai and McCarthy would issue a joint statement after the closed-door meeting, while lawmakers who take part would hold a news briefing in the afternoon, the office said.
It would be the third time a Taiwanese president would have met with a House speaker since Taipei and Washington severed diplomatic ties in 1979.
The first meeting occurred in 1997, when then-House speaker Newt Gingrich met with then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in Taipei, and the second took place in August last year, when then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Tsai, also in Taipei.
Photo courtesy of President Office
Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Xavier Chang (張惇涵) would not disclose the list of US lawmakers who were to attend the Tsai-McCarthy meeting when asked about the issue aboard the president’s charter flight on the way to Los Angeles.
However, a source told the Central News Agency that Republican US Representative Mike Gallagher, who chairs a new House select committee on China and who visited Taiwan in February, and Democratic US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a senior member of the China committee, would be in attendance.
China has objected to the meeting, warning that it would take “resolute measures” to protect its sovereignty.
Photo courtesy of President Office
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) on Monday said that Beijing strongly opposes “any form of official interaction and contact between the US side and Taiwan authorities.”
Presidential Office spokeswoman Lin Yu-chan (林聿禪) said that “China is not in a position to meddle in” the matter, because Taiwan and its 23 million people have the right to engage with other democratic countries.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby reiterated the US position, cautioning China not to overreact to the meeting, US media reported.
Photo: AFP
“We’ve certainly seen some rhetoric coming out of Beijing with respect to President Tsai Ing-wen’s transit,” Kirby said.
He said Tsai and “every other previous president of Taiwan has transited the United States, so there’s nothing uncommon here. There’s nothing atypical about it and there’s no reason for the Chinese to overreact.”
Tsai separately met with Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, on Thursday last week and had breakfast with Republican US senators Dan Sullivan and Joni Ernst, and Democratic US Senator Mark Kelly before leaving New York the next day for Central America, Chang said.
Photo: AP
Tsai expressed her thanks to US President Joe Biden and members of the US Congress for their support of Taiwan, which she said has allowed Taiwan and the US to overcome multiple challenges together.
The US’ support has also prompted many like-minded countries to pay attention to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region, Tsai said, adding that she hopes the two sides would continue to cooperate on security issues, Chang added.
Tsai said that Taiwan would continue to be a reliable economic and trade partner, and build resilient global supply chains with like-minded countries to help the global economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
‘DANGEROUS GAME’: Legislative Yuan budget cuts have already become a point of discussion for Democrats and Republicans in Washington, Elbridge Colby said Taiwan’s fall to China “would be a disaster for American interests” and Taipei must raise defense spending to deter Beijing, US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead Pentagon policy, Elbridge Colby, said on Tuesday during his US Senate confirmation hearing. The nominee for US undersecretary of defense for policy told the Armed Services Committee that Washington needs to motivate Taiwan to avoid a conflict with China and that he is “profoundly disturbed” about its perceived reluctance to raise defense spending closer to 10 percent of GDP. Colby, a China hawk who also served in the Pentagon in Trump’s first team,
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
INVESTMENT WATCH: The US activity would not affect the firm’s investment in Taiwan, where 11 production lines would likely be completed this year, C.C. Wei said Investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the US should not be a cause for concern, but rather seen as the moment that the company and Taiwan stepped into the global spotlight, President William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday alongside TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家). Wei and US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday announced plans to invest US$100 billion in the US to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research and development center, after Trump threatened to slap tariffs on chips made
RSS