House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will meet Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen in California instead of in the island nation, the Financial Times reported.
McCarthy, elected Speaker of the House in January, said last summer — when he supported former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) trip to the island nation — that he would visit if elected to the same position. However, he will now reportedly meet the Taiwanese president in California.
Tsai Ing-Wen waves after addressing supporters following her re-election as President of Taiwan on January 11, 2020 in Taipei, Taiwan. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
“We shared some intelligence about what the Chinese Communist party is recently up to and the kinds of threats they pose,” a senior Taiwanese official told FT about information Taipei had provided to the speaker’s office.
The official added that China is “not in a good situation right now,” while also indicating that Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and his inner circle are making decisions about China’s military.
Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Hu Jintao attend the opening session of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China CPC at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 16, 2022. The 20th CPC National Congress opened on Sunday. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The Taiwanese president will visit California and New York in early April during a trip to Central America and has accepted an invitation to speak at the Reagan Library in southern California, near McCarthy’s home district, according to the FT.
McCarthy’s trip would have marked the second consecutive year a Speaker of the House has visited the island nation. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited during her time in the position, which received warnings from China at the time.
Speaker of the U.S. House Of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), center left, speaks Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, center right, after arriving at the president’s office on August 03, 2022 in Taipei, Taiwan. (Chien Chih-Hung/Office of The President via Getty Images)
China had ramped up military drills near the island to try and intimidate any visitors at the time. However, despite the intimidation tactics from China, Pelosi still successfully made the trip and became the most senior official to visit the country since 1997 when then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) visited.
McCarthy and the House Republicans have taken a hardline stance on China in the new Congress, establishing a bipartisan Select Committee to investigate China and find ways to counter the communist country’s growing international influence. Only 65 lawmakers, all of whom were Democrats, voted against the committee’s creation.
This also comes just weeks after tensions between China and the U.S. appeared to grow after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese balloon believed to be surveillance aircraft in early February over the Atlantic Ocean off the Carolina coast. Despite U.S. officials claiming it was a spy balloon with surveillance capability, China maintains it was just an off-course weather balloon.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.