BEIJING - China warned United States House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday not to “repeat disastrous past mistakes” and meet Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, as it would not help regional peace and stability but only unite the Chinese people against a common enemy.
Mr McCarthy, a Republican and the third-most senior US leader after the President and Vice-President, will host a meeting in California on Wednesday with Ms Tsai during a sensitive stopover in the US that has prompted Chinese threats of retaliation.
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, staged war games around the island in August 2022 after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, visited the island’s capital Taipei.
Ms Tsai will make what is formally called a “transit” in Los Angeles on her way back to Taipei after a trip to Central America.
The US says such stopovers are common practice and there is no need for China to overreact.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said Beijing would “closely monitor the situation and firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
“China is strongly opposed to the US arranging for Tsai Ing-wen to transit through its territory and is strongly opposed to the meeting between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the third-ranking US official, and Tsai Ing-wen,” she said.
“It seriously violates the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, and seriously undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she added.
China’s consulate in Los Angeles said it was “false” to claim that Ms Tsai’s stopover was a transit, adding that she was engaging in official exchanges to “put on a political show”.
No matter in what capacity Mr McCarthy meets Ms Tsai, the gesture would greatly harm the feelings of the Chinese people, send a serious wrong signal to Taiwan separatist forces, and affect the political foundation of Sino-US ties, it said in a statement.
“It is not conducive to regional peace, security nor stability, and is not in the common interests of the people of China and the United States,” it added.
Mr McCarthy is ignoring the lessons from the mistakes of his predecessor, it said, in a veiled reference to Mrs Pelosi’s Taipei visit, and is insisting on playing the “Taiwan card”.
“He will undoubtedly repeat disastrous past mistakes and further damage Sino-US relations. It will only strengthen the Chinese people’s strong will and determination to share a common enemy and support national unity.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said China had no right to complain, as the People’s Republic of China has never ruled the island.
China’s recent criticism of Ms Tsai’s trip “has become increasingly absurd”, it added.
“Even if the authoritarian government continues with its expansion and intensifies coercion, Taiwan will not back down.”
Meanwhile, prominent Chinese commentator Hu Xijin wrote that “the Chinese mainland will definitely react and make the Tsai Ing-wen regime lose much more than what they can gain from this meeting”.
Mr Hu, a former editor-in-chief of Chinese state tabloid Global Time who had also voiced his concerns over Mrs Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022, wrote on his Weibo account, a Twitter-like social media platform in China: “The US side is definitely not getting any real advantage either.” REUTERS
