Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday will become the second US House speaker to meet with Taiwan’s president in person in the span of a year when he sits down with Tsai Ing-wen in southern California.
His meeting could be considered less provocative than Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in August, a trip the Biden administration quietly sought to dissuade her from taking given the potential for ratcheting up tensions in the region.
But it’s still drawn threats of retaliation from China and threatens to cause further deterioration in the deeply strained ties between Washington and Beijing.
Both Pelosi and McCarthy want to demonstrate American support for the self-governing island and neither wants to be seen backing down in the face of threats from China.
For McCarthy, the meeting is another example of a speaker who has pledged to make the US and China relationship a central focus of his speakership. Pelosi, who visited Tiananmen Square in 1991 to unfurl a pro-democracy banner, also has a long history of showing support for democracy movements.
A source close to McCarthy tells CNN that the meeting, which is happening in his home state at the Reagan Presidential Library just four months into his speakership, is an important moment for McCarthy, who made creating a select committee on China one of his top priorities and who views the US relationship with China as a central issue of our time.
The source told CNN that in the planning of this meeting it was also important for McCarthy to make sure this meeting was bipartisan. McCarthy will be joined on Wednesday by Democrats including Rep. Peter Aguilar, a member of their leadership.
This also comes as other members including Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and three US senators met with Tsai last week in New York.
Taiwan is a highly sensitive issue for Beijing and…
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