China again sent warships, a helicopter and a fighter jet near Taiwan for the second day in a row today after the island’s president met with the speaker of the US House of Representatives.

The island’s defense ministry said three Chinese warships entered the waters around Taiwan, adding that a fighter jet and an anti-submarine helicopter also passed through Taiwan’s air defense reconnaissance zone.

Yesterday Thursday, Taiwan already spotted three Chinese warships and an anti-submarine helicopter.

And on Wednesday, just hours before Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy met in California, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong crossed the waters southeast of Taiwan and headed west. Pacific Ocean.

Beijing warned that it would react “strongly” and “strongly” to Tsai’s meeting with McCarthy.

China regards Taiwan as a province that has yet to be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary, and views any contact between Taiwanese officials and foreigners as a violation of its national sovereignty.

In the name of the “one China” policy, it is assumed that neither country can have official relations with Beijing and Taipei at the same time.

In August 2022, following a visit to Taiwan by McCarthy’s predecessor Nancy Pelosi, China held an unprecedented multi-day military exercise around the island.

American weapons in Taiwan

After considering visiting Taiwan, the Republican Speaker of the House decided to meet with Tsai in California, where she was returning from a tour of Latin America. This compromise solution was chosen so as not to escalate tensions with Beijing.

Before leaving Los Angeles on Thursday, Cai said she “hopes” China “will show restraint and not overreact.”

During their meeting, McCarthy called for “the continued sale of weapons to Taiwan”, which he said is “the best means to prevent Chinese intervention on the island”.

“This is an important lesson that we have learned from Ukraine, namely that simple sanctions will not stop anyone in the future,” he stressed.

Tsai, for her part, said that Taiwan was “buying weapons from the United States,” expressing the hope that they would be “delivered on time.”

At the same time, he noted which island wants to “block the intervention” of China in its territorial waters.

Taiwan’s Premier Chen Jian-ren said today that the island’s national security and defense agencies are closely monitoring the situation and urged “citizens to remain calm.”

Beijing should choose the path of “diplomacy” rather than the path of “pressure” on Taiwan, urged, in turn, State Department spokesman Vendal Patel.

Beijing sanctions

China today imposed sanctions on Taipei’s envoy to the US, Xiao Bihim, banning him from entering its territory and accusing him of “deliberately fomenting conflict across the strait.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also announced sanctions against the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank, as well as the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where the Tsai-McCarthy meeting took place, for “providing a platform and assisting Tsai Ing-wen in recruiting supporters of the “movement for Taiwan Independence” in the United States”.

The two entities are now banned from doing business and doing business with Chinese entities, and four individuals associated with them are banned from entering or doing business in China.

Source: APE-MPE, AFP.