House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is set to meet with Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen during her U.S. visit later this year, the Californian Republican confirmed on March 7, adding that the meeting would not replace his anticipated trip to the democratic island.
“That has nothing to do with my travel, if I would go to Taiwan,” he told reporters on Tuesday, adding that “China can’t tell me where or when to go.”
The Chinese Communist Party has long claimed Taiwan as its territory and has never disavowed using force to take it over. That ambition has been increasingly on display in recent years as the regime steps up military harassment, sending warplanes and ships toward the island on a near-daily basis, which experts have termed as a “gray zone” tactic aimed at eroding public morale and exhausting Taiwan’s defense resources….