House Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to meet with the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, in California — where she’s been invited to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. In addition to the likely April meeting in the Golden State, McCarthy also reportedly plans to visit Taiwan itself this year.
That may seem like a relatively benign diplomatic mission for the man who is second in line to the presidency, but it’s a move that is almost sure to cause outrage in Beijing. A visit to Taiwan by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year so perturbed the Chinese Communist Party that it conducted military “operations” that encircled the entire island with Chinese military assets and even threatened to shoot down Pelosi’s plane in a vain effort to forestall her diplomatic overture.
.png)
.png)
