Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen is scheduled to meet US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California this week, an anticipated encounter that has already prompted Beijing to threaten a “resolutely fight back” response. China has also warned that allowing Tsai to stopover in the United States could lead to “serious” confrontation between the two powers, raising concerns of a potential repeat of the pressure campaign launched last year.
Last August, when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, Beijing encircled the island democracy with unprecedented military drills. These drills included firing multiple missiles into Taiwan's surrounding waters and sending dozens of warplanes across the sensitive median line dividing the Taiwan Strait. In retaliation for what it viewed as a violation of its sovereignty, China also cut off contact with the United States on various issues, from military matters to combating climate change.
Despite the threats, President Tsai Ing-wen, as she embarked on her 10-day trip, pledged defiance, stating she would not let “external pressure” prevent Taiwan from connecting with the world and like-minded democracies. Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported Monday that Tsai would meet with McCarthy, citing Tsai’s presidential office, with McCarthy's office announcing earlier this week that the meeting would take place on Wednesday.
Analysts suggest that Beijing may tread more carefully this time, or at least avoid further escalation, due to several factors. The meeting is taking place in California, on US soil, rather than in Taiwan, which is seen as less provocative. Furthermore, the timing coincides with a particularly thorny moment in China’s foreign relations and comes ahead of a presidential election in Taiwan that could reshape its relationship with Beijing.
Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, commented on the situation, saying, “This puts the burden on China not to overreact, because any overreaction is only going to push China further away from the world.” Sun added that while China typically reacts with military coercion to actions it dislikes from Taiwan, in the current situation, “they have to consider the consequences of overreaction.” The opacity of China’s system and potential competing interests within its bureaucracy also make predicting its response difficult.
The expected meeting also occurs at a precarious juncture for US-China relations. Washington and Beijing are currently struggling to stabilize communication amidst escalating tensions over issues ranging from a downed suspected Chinese surveillance balloon to semiconductor supply chains. This delicate state raises the stakes for potential damage to the relationship if Beijing reacts as aggressively as it did during Tsai’s meeting with Pelosi. Taiwan continues to experience the fallout from that August response, with Chinese military forces now regularly making incursions over what was previously an informal but largely respected border of control in the Taiwan Strait.
For Taiwan and the United States, which only maintain unofficial ties, a meeting between Tsai and the leader of the Republican majority in the US House of Representatives—who ranks second in line to the Presidency—marks another symbolic moment. For President Tsai, who is entering the final year of her two-term presidency, this is “clearly a capstone event,” according to Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University’s Taiwan Studies Program. Sung noted that Tsai has cultivated an image as the Taiwanese president who has “taken US-Taiwan relations to new heights, and who … has been able to give Taiwan almost unprecedented international visibility.”
This increased visibility and enhanced cooperation with the US have developed in response to China’s mounting pressure on the self-governing island democracy, which lies fewer than 110 miles (177 kilometers) from the mainland coast. China’s Communist Party claims Taiwan as its own, despite never having controlled it, and has vowed to take the island, by force if necessary. Over the past decade, under leader Xi Jinping, the party has undertaken a sweeping expansion of its military capabilities and ramped up pervasive economic, diplomatic, and military pressure on Taiwan. This has fueled concerns in Washington that Beijing is preparing for an invasion, though China’s official language still suggests this scenario is not its preferred option for achieving its claimed goal of “reunification.”
These pressures, and how to support Taiwan against unilateral actions by Beijing, are likely to be key topics when Tsai, McCarthy, and a bipartisan group of US lawmakers convene on Wednesday. Congress has consistently demonstrated increasing American support for Taiwan in recent years, with lawmakers regularly visiting the island and driving bipartisan legislation to enhance support and cooperation. While the US switched its diplomatic relations to Beijing decades ago, it maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan and is legally bound to provide the democratic island with the means to defend itself. Under Washington’s longstanding “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China but has never officially recognized Beijing’s claim to the island of 23 million people.
McCarthy, while lacking Pelosi’s decades-long record of advocacy regarding China, is now a leading voice advocating for closer scrutiny of Beijing, and meeting Tsai could help to burnish that image. Last month, McCarthy informed reporters that a meeting with Tsai in the US would not affect his future travel plans to Taiwan, a trip he had previously expressed a desire to make. A meeting in California, on US soil, is widely perceived as less likely to provoke Beijing than a McCarthy visit directly to Taiwan, unlike Pelosi’s trip, which was the first from a lawmaker of that rank to the island in 25 years and generated a “fever pitch of nationalist and anti-US rhetoric” in mainland China.
So far, domestic conversation in China’s heavily controlled media sphere has been significantly muted. However, analysts emphasize that the stakes remain high for Beijing regarding its response. A fierce reaction could potentially alienate voters from Taiwan’s main opposition party, Kuomintang (KMT), widely regarded as more friendly toward Beijing, ahead of Taiwan's presidential election in January. Such a response could also undermine another high-profile event currently underway: a tour of mainland China by former Taiwan president and senior KMT member Ma Ying-jeou, marking the first visit from a current or former Taiwan leader since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Wen-Ti Sung highlighted the significance of Ma’s tour, calling it a “once in a half a century opportunity to send a conciliatory message between the two sides,” adding that Beijing “shouldn’t want to tank that.” China is also acutely aware that its actions toward Taiwan are under a significantly brighter global spotlight following the invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close diplomatic partner of Xi Jinping. Putin’s rhetoric regarding Ukraine echoes how Xi speaks of Taiwan, and Beijing has recently sought to position itself as an agent of peace in that conflict, particularly as it aims to repair frayed ties with Europe.
This week, concurrently with Tsai’s expected meeting with McCarthy, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are scheduled to visit China. This presents an important opportunity that Xi may not wish to overshadow with military posturing. An aggressive response also risks stoking confrontation with the US, less than six months after Xi and US President Joe Biden met face-to-face in Bali and called to enhance communication.
Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London, suggested that “(A less overtly aggressive response) would imply that Beijing does not wish to escalate tension with the US to a level that can risk getting out of hand.” He concluded that while “A reset in US-China ties is not on the agenda, but an easing of tension is not beyond the realm of possibility.”