Ms Tsai will stop over in the US on Wednesday, as she returns from a tour of Taiwan’s allies in Central America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A visit to Taiwan last year by the former US speaker was seen as a major provocation by China, which reacted with military drills around the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US-China relations are at a low point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tensions have soared in the wake of a row over alleged spy balloons<\/a> and increasing US attempts to cut off China’s access to advanced tech<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr McCarthy will meet the Taiwanese leader in a “bipartisan” meeting at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library outside of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The meeting in the US, as opposed to in Taiwan, has been seen as a compromise to avoid inflaming tensions with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Beijing last week cautioned that any meeting between Ms Tsai and the third-highest-ranking US official could lead to the US seeing “serious repercussions”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said Beijing “strongly” opposes any form of official interaction and contact between the US and Taiwan governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US maintains full diplomatic relations with Beijing but is Taiwan’s most important ally and arms supplier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Ms Tsai was elected in 2016, Beijing has ramped up military, economic and diplomatic pressure on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has increased investment in Latin America, a key diplomatic battleground between the two sides where Taiwan has a few of its 13 diplomatic allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms Tsai’s visited Guatemala and Belize where she met both nations’ leaders and reaffirmed diplomatic ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taiwan lost an ally in the region, Honduras, last month when it switched loyalties to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taiwan defence officials said President Tsai’s trip abroad had seen more than a dozen Chinese aircraft cross the midway mark of the Taiwan Strait on Friday and Saturday. Taiwan says there is a regular pattern of harassment from Chinese planes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beijing views Taiwan, a self-governing island of 23 million, as a breakaway province to be taken by force if necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BBC News: US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has confirmed he will meet Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen in California this week, despite China’s warning this could lead to “serious confrontation”. Ms Tsai will stop over in the US on Wednesday, as she returns from a tour of Taiwan’s allies in Central America. A visit to Taiwan last year by the former US speaker was seen as a major provocation by China, which reacted with military drills around the island. US-China relations are at a low point. Tensions have soared in the wake of a row over alleged spy balloons and increasing… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31250,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31248\/revisions\/31250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tsai](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/17D6E\/production\/_129264679_827595bedfb5aba1d2a5d2b4bd09e2b1204282ce0_106_2048_11521000x563.jpg\")