China threatens to ‘resolutely fight back’ as Taiwan president begins US trip

China has pledged to “resolutely fight back” if Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen meets US House speaker Kevin McCarthy during an upcoming trip to the US.

Top diplomats of China and Taiwan exchanged heated words as the president of the self-governing island democracy took off from Taipei to begin her 10-day tour of the Americas on Wednesday.

Ms Tsai is scheduled to transit through New York to Guatemala and Belize and is expected to stop over in Los Angeles where she will tentatively meet Mr McCarthy on her way back to Taiwan.

The trip holds significance as it comes after Honduras switched its diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China, in a blow for the island nation. Only 13 nations now recognise Taiwan as a sovereign state in a major diplomatic win for Xi Jinping.

Ms Tsai’s US stopovers will be closely observed by Beijing, which claims the island as its own territory and has ramped up its assertive foreign policy stance to curtail any room for diplomatic manoeuvring with other nations.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said the potential meeting between the two would be “another provocation” that would “destroy peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”.

“If she contacts US House speaker McCarthy, it will be another provocation that seriously violates the one-China principle, harms China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and destroys peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Zhu Fenglian, the office’s spokesperson told a news conference, just hours before Ms Tsai was to board the plane.

“We firmly oppose this and will definitely take measures to resolutely fight back.”

She also warned the US against arranging the meeting or any other contact with its officials, calling on the country to “fulfil its solemn commitment not to support Taiwan independence”.

While transit visits through the US during international trips by the Taiwanese president have been a routine affair over the years, this will be her first since 2019.

The trip will mark yet another instance of diplomatic wrangling, after China staged unprecedented military exercises and missile launches near Taiwan for the first time in August last year after the then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island country.

Beijing’s diplomatic pressure on Taiwan has been compounded further by the poaching of the island’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies.

Shortly before her departure from Taiwan, Ms Tsai said external pressure will not obstruct her from showing Taiwan’s commitment to democratic values on the world stage.

“I want to tell the whole world, democratic Taiwan will resolutely safeguard the values of freedom and democracy and will continue to be a force for good in the world, continuing a cycle of goodness, strengthening the resilience of democracy in the world,” she told reporters.

“We are calm and confident, will neither yield nor provoke. Taiwan will firmly walk on the road of freedom and democracy and go into the world,” she said.

“Although this road is rough, Taiwan is not alone.”

The US has billed the visit and the first meeting of Taiwanese officials on US soil as routine and urged China to not overreact.

Senior Biden administration officials told Reuters that Ms Tsai had engaged in a range of activities, including meetings with members of Congress, the Taiwanese diaspora and other groups in her previous transits.

“So there’s absolutely no reason for Beijing to use this upcoming transit as an excuse or a pretext to carry out aggressive or coercive activities aimed at Taiwan,” the official said.