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China is imposing sanctions against the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and other U.S.- and Asian-based organizations in retaliation for the closely watched meeting this week between the U.S. House Speaker and Taiwan’s president.
The Reagan library in Simi Valley, California, was the site of the rare high-level, bipartisan meeting Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted this week for talks with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
The meeting came as U.S.-China relations have sunk to historic lows and as tensions between Taiwan and China have risen. China views any official exchanges between foreign governments and Taiwan as an attempt to raise Taipei’s global status, and thus an infringement on Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over the island.
China had vowed countermeasures against Taipei for its interactions with the U.S. “We will take resolute measures to punish the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and their actions, and resolutely safeguard our country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement Thursday, referring to Tsai and her political party as separatists.
