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US House speaker McCarthy hosts Taiwan’s chief in California
Apr 7, 2023WASHINGTON D.C.: The office of US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in California this week.
The announcement was a confirmation of what had been a widely anticipated meeting.
Tsai’s US stopover, her first since 2019, has drawn threats of retaliation from China, which claims democratically ruled Taiwan as its own territory, and has repeatedly warned US officials not to meet Tsai.
Before the meeting, in a statement, McCarthy’s office said, “On Wednesday, April 5th, Speaker Kevin McCarthy will be hosting a bipartisan meeting with the President of Taiwan at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.”
Though seen as a potentially less provocative alternative to McCarthy visiting Taiwan, the meeting was the first between a Taiwanese leader and a US House of Representatives Speaker on US soil.
The White House said that China should not use Tsai’s “normal” stopover in the US as a pretext to increase its aggression against Taiwan.
“During transits through the US, the President engages with American friends, in line with past precedents,” said Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington, in a statement.
