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An expected meeting between Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen this week in California is a careful exercise in standing up to Beijing’s threats while holding back from triggering a war in the Pacific.
For Tsai, a Los Angeles run-in with Washington’s most powerful California representative, is a convenient and strategic cover story to defend against provoking a particularly dangerous military response from China.
Still, McCarthy is unlikely to use a California meeting in place of traveling to Taiwan personally.
Earlier this month, the Speaker told reporters that meeting the Taiwanese president in America “has nothing to do with my travel, if I would go to Taiwan or not.”
“China can’t tell me where or when to go, and none of that discussion ever happened. If the president happens to be in America, then I’m going to meet with her,” he said.
McCarthy has entered the Speakership having established a reputation as a savvy electoral strategist; now he is moving to make his mark on foreign policy, with an eye on China.
One of his first moves as Speaker was creating a House select committee on China, a panel that he said he tried to create with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in 2020 before Democrats backed out.
It is viewed as one of Congress’s best opportunities to find bipartisan agreement, with Taiwan being a major focus.
McCarthy said at the House GOP’s annual issues retreat earlier this month that it is of the upmost importance “that China does not think to go capture Taiwan,” and expressed concern about Chinese President Xi’s recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ‘Transiting’ through the US
The Speaker is expected to welcome Tsai this week in Los Angeles, in cautiously orchestrated travel where the Taiwanese president is “transiting” through the U.S. to Taiwan on the way back from official engagements in Central America.
Tsai reportedly met with the Democratic House Minority Leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), while she was “transiting” through New York.
“We know it’s a ruse, but it’s enough of a face saver for the Chinese to say, ‘yeah, we’re gonna rattle the sabers, but it’s not a red line for us,’” Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at Hudson Institute, said about the meetings between Tsai and lawmakers.
