China vows ‘forceful’ measures after US-Taiwan meeting

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, (right) with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen after a Bipartisan Leadership Meeting at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, Wednesday. Pic/AP

China vowed reprisals against Taiwan after a meeting between the United States House speaker and the island's president, saying Thursday that the U.S. was on a "wrong and dangerous road." Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a show of U.S. support for the self-ruled island, which China claims as its own, along with a bipartisan delegation of more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers.

The Biden administration maintains there is nothing provocative about the visit by Tsai, which is the latest of a half-dozen to the U.S. Yet, it comes as the U.S.-China relationship has fallen to historic lows, with U.S. support for Taiwan becoming one of the main points of difference between the two powers.

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But the formal trappings of the meeting, and the senior rank of some of the elected officials in the delegation from Congress, could lead China to view it as an escalation. No speaker is known to have met a Taiwan president on U.S. soil since the U.S. broke off formal diplomatic relations in 1979. In response to the meeting, Beijing said it would take "resolute and forceful measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity," in a statement issued early Thursday morning by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It urged the U.S. "not to walk further down a wrong and dangerous road."

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