Kevin McCarthy to meet Taiwan President in Calfornia instead of Taipei trends now
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will meet with Taiwan's president in California next month - rather than a sitdown in Taipei - to avoid provoking China amid high tensions between Beijing and Washington.
President Tsai Ing-wen and McCarthy are expected to meet in Simi Valley, California in April, Reuters reported on Monday. The first female president of Taiwan has been invited to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library during a stop on a planned visit to Central America.
McCarthy's office didn't respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
The meeting would come amid as relations between the U.S. and China have gotten worse in the wake of the spy balloon China sent over the U.S. and reports Xi Jinping is considering lethal aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-California (left) will meet Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (right) in California next month instead of traveling to Taiwan
Also, there were concerns Beijing could elevate its military response if McCarthy traveled to the island. In the past week, China has sent warplanes and warships toward Taiwan and the U.S. has responded by giving Tsai's government ammunition for its fighter jets.
The White House declined to comment, saying no visit to the U.S. has been announced by Tsai's government.
'I don't believe Taiwan has announced any travel for the president of Taiwan,' White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Monday's press briefing.
'Taiwan's presidents have traveled to the United States in the past. So I would refer you to Taiwan for anything specific on that. And certainly I would refer you to the Speaker's office, any potential meeting that he may be having with the president,' she said.
McCarthy, a Republican from California, has said several times he wanted to travel to Taiwan as Nancy Pelosi did when she was speaker.
But he agreed to meet Tsai in the U.S. because of Taiwanese security concerns, Financial Times reported.
A senior Taiwanese official told the outlet that Tsai's administration had provided McCarthy's team with 'some intelligence about what the Chinese Communist party is recently up to and the kinds of threats they pose.'
The official added that China was 'not in a good situation.'
The Chinese Communist Party claims Taiwan, a democratically-ruled island of 24 million people, as
