China Vows ‘Forceful’ Measures After McCarthy-Taiwanese President Meeting

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China vowed reprisals against Taiwan Thursday after a meeting between the U.S. House Speaker and the island’s President, saying 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 bi-partisan delegation of more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers.

The Biden administration has said 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.

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 with 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.”

By Thursday afternoon, there was no overt sign of a large-scale military response as of Thursday afternoon as China had done previously.

“We will take resolute measures to punish the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and their actions, and resolutely safeguard our country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said a statement from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Thursday morning, referring to Tsai and her political party as separatists.

Chinese vessels were engaged in a joint patrol and inspection operation in the Taiwan Strait that will last three days, state media said Thursday morning. The Fujian Maritime Safety Administration said its ship, the Haixun 06, would inspect cargo ships and others in the waters which run between Taiwan and China as part of this operation.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said Wednesday evening it had tracked the China’s Shandong aircraft carrier passing through the Bashi Strait, to Taiwan’s southeast. On Thursday morning, it tracked three People’s Liberation Army navy vessels and one warplane in the area around the island.

The PLA regularly flies warplanes towards…