According to her official agenda, Ing-wen only made a stopover in the US on her way home from a tour of Latin America. However, the potential meeting sparked widespread irritation in Beijing, where Chinese authorities vowed to take “retaliatory measures” to “vigorously defend sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
China believes that Taiwan, an island of 23 million people, is a renegade province. According to Beijing, therefore, there can be no rapprochement between the West, and the United States in particular, and Taiwan. The US recognized the People’s Republic of China in 1979 and, in theory, should not have official contact with the Republic of China (Taiwan), under the “one China principle” espoused by Beijing.
Last summer, a Taiwanese visit by McCarthy’s predecessor as Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, sparked an unprecedented riot. In retaliation, the Chinese then began large-scale military exercises around the island.