China sends warships near Taiwan before Tsai-McCarthy meeting
China has sent warships through waters around Chinese Taipei in a "resolute response" to the meeting of the self-governed island's president and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.
Taipei's President Tsai Ing-wen met with McCarthy in Los Angeles on Wednesday, despite China's stern warnings to both sides that the meeting should not take place.
China has sovereignty over Taipei. The US recognizes that sovereignty but regularly violates its own stated policy. The island has become a major bone of contention between Beijing and Washington.
Hours before the meeting between Tsai and McCarthy, China deployed an aircraft carrier through waters near the self-ruled island.
Taipei's ministry of national defense said on Thursday morning that the military had detected three additional warships in waters separating the island from mainland China. An anti-submarine helicopter had also crossed the island's "air defense identification zone," the ministry said.
A visit by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei also drew a similar response from China last year, when Beijing carried out the largest-ever air and sea exercises around the island.
The Chinese Ministry of Defense issued a warning ahead of the newer meeting, saying that Beijing "maintains high vigilance at all times, resolutely defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity." The ministry said it opposed "the leader of the Taiwan region slinking to the United States under any name or for any excuse."
In California, Tsai expressed gratitude for the meeting that she said showed her island was not isolated on the international stage.
She emphasized trade and economic partnerships even more than military assistance, according to Representative Seth Moulton. McCarthy, for his part, said the Taipei-Washington relationship was "a matter of profound importance to the free world."
He also vowed that US arms sales to Taipei would continue, amid an ongoing debate in Washington about how to step up weapons shipments assistance to the island and whether the United States should commit to aid the island in case of a Chinese attack.
The meeting with McCarthy, who is second in line to the presidency and who offered the highest-level government reception of a Taiwanese president on US soil, still falls short of an audience with the president of the United States. McCarthy had originally planned to travel to Taipei, but opted instead to meet Tsai in California.
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