Taiwan’s Tsai dismisses China’s threat to ‘fight back’ if she meets McCarthy

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen pledged that her government “will only grow more determined to engage with the world” in the face of China’s threats.

“This administration is committed to bringing Taiwan closer to the global community while also enabling the world to engage with Taiwan,” Tsai told reporters as she boarded a flight to New York. “And our determination to engage with the world will not be diminished by the pressures of expanding authoritarianism.”

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Tsai’s arrival in New York is one of two stops on American soil framed as “transits” through the United States in the context of her travel to Guatemala and Belize. Yet her expected meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) during her return through California makes the transit a kind of bookend to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last year, which Chinese Communist officials, keen to suppress any sign that the U.S. or other countries treat Taiwan as an independent country, took as an occasion to practice a blockade of the island democracy.

“If she has contact with U.S. House Speaker McCarthy, it will be another provocation that seriously violates the one-China principle, harms China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and destroys peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian said Wednesday. “We firmly oppose this and will definitely take measures to resolutely fight back.”

Tsai is scheduled to attend an event hosted by the Hudson Institute in New York on Thursday before continuing with her itinerary in Belize and Guatemala, two countries that have maintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan. After the conclusion of her itinerary in Central America, she is expected to meet McCarthy and other members of Congress at the Reagan library in California before returning to Taipei.

“The theme of this trip is ‘Meeting Democratic Partners, Fostering Shared Prosperity,’” Tsai said. “By that, we intend to show our determination to foster deeper exchange and cooperation with our allies.”

Chinese Communist officials have claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since their victory in the civil war that overthrew the nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek, who fled across the Taiwan Strait and established a military dictatorship in Taipei. That Kuomintang regime, which never ceased to call itself the Republic of China, gave way to a democratic system of governance that allowed Tsai’s center-left government to come to power.

“Taiwan remains firm in its commitment to freedom and democracy, and is determined to engage with the world,” she said. “Although this path is fraught with challenges and obstacles, Taiwan does not walk it alone. With this in mind, we are moving forward once again for freedom and democracy, for peace and stability, and for shared prosperity.”

Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping has pledged to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s authority by force if necessary. Such a prospect would give the communist regime control over an island that sits at the center of the so-called first island chain that links Japan to other U.S. allies across the Indo-Pacific. Then-President Jimmy Carter cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 to establish official relations with Beijing amid the Cold War, but the U.S. has never endorsed Chinese Communist claims to sovereignty over Taipei, and federal law has required U.S. officials to maintain friendly relations with Taiwan and provide military equipment to deter or repel a hypothetical invasion by communist forces.

President Joe Biden’s administration has been anxious to downplay the significance of Tsai’s travel in a bid to mollify Xi without conceding that Beijing has the right to veto meetings between U.S. lawmakers and Taiwanese leaders.

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“There’s absolutely no reason for Beijing to use this upcoming transit as an excuse or a pretext to carry out aggressive or coercive activities aimed at Taiwan,” a senior U.S. official said this week. “These unilateral attempts to change the status quo will not pressure the U.S. government to alter our long-standing practice to facilitate transits through the United States.”

Tsai struck a resolute note. “Taiwan is a Taiwan of the world,” she said. “[W]e will remain calm and confident. We will neither yield nor provoke.”