House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s highly anticipated visit to Taiwan will be replaced by a meeting with the country’s president in California amid concerns in Taipei about Chinese military activity, the Financial Times reported this morning.
While McCarthy has previously planned to travel to the island sometime this year, the FT quoted a senior Taiwanese official as saying, “We shared some intelligence about what the Chinese Communist Party is recently up to and the kinds of threats they pose.” The official also told the outlet that China is “not in a good situation right now.”
Instead, McCarthy will reportedly meet President Tsai Ing-wen when she travels to California for a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. She will also stop in New York, and, although the FT didn’t say anything more about her visit, local Taiwanese media reported that Tsai plans to visit Cornell University, her alma mater.
After former speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taiwan last summer, the People’s Liberation Army conducted military exercises, which included launching missiles into areas surrounding Taiwan. The FT report suggests that Taipei is worried about the possibility of an equally aggressive, or worse, response by Beijing around McCarthy’s visit.
The internal political situation in China has changed considerably since Pelosi’s visit, with general secretary Xi Jinping further consolidating his rule at last November’s Chinese Communist Party National Congress.
In the months since Pelosi’s visit, U.S. and Taiwanese officials have warned about Beijing’s continued desire to annex Taiwan. During a speech last month, CIA director Bill Burns said that Xi has ordered the PLA to be capable of launching an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.
Today in Taipei, Taiwanese defense minister Chiu Kuo-cheng issued a new warning about Chinese military aggression in an appearance before his country’s parliament, according to Reuters:
Answering questions from lawmakers in parliament, Chiu said the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might find excuses to enter areas close to Taiwan’s territorial air and sea space as the island steps up its military exchanges with the United States, to Beijing’s ire.
He said the PLA might make a “sudden entry” into Taiwan’s contiguous zone and get close to its territorial space, which the island defines as 12 nautical miles from its coastlines.
“(I) specifically make these comments this year, meaning they are making such preparations,” Chiu said. “Looking forward, they would use force if they really have to.”
The senior Taiwanese official quoted by the FT did not elaborate on the intelligence that was provided to McCarthy’s office, but Chiu’s remarks speak to the way in which the security situation near Taiwan may have changed since even a few months ago.