World News | House Republican Chairman Says Taiwan Threat From China Serious

WASHINGTON, April 9 (AP) The chairman of the House Select Committee on China said Saturday that the United States must take seriously the threat it poses to Taiwan as Beijing launches military exercises around the island after its president met with U.S. lawmakers .

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who was in California last week for talks with President Tsai Ing-wen, told The Associated Press that he plans to lead his committee’s efforts to strengthen the island’s government’s defenses, encouraging Congress to expedite efforts against Taiwan. military aid.

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“I think it all speaks to the obvious,” Gallagher told The Associated Press, arguing that Chinese President Xi Jinping intends to unify Taiwan with the mainland.

“We need earth-shattering to increase our deterrence and denial posture to allow Xi Jinping to draw conclusions that he cannot,” Gallagher said.

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Taiwan’s government said China conducted drills with warships and dozens of fighter jets around the island on Saturday, seen as retaliation for a meeting between U.S. lawmakers and the president of the self-governing island democracy that Beijing claims to be part of. territory.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Tsai at a bipartisan meeting at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, in one of the most sensitive stops during Tsai’s transit through the United States, attended by more than a dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

So far, China’s reaction to Tsai’s transit in the United States has been less intense than that following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year.

The one-day meeting angered China, despite both McCarthy and Tsai’s cautious remarks after the meeting to maintain the status quo between the two countries, which do not have formal diplomatic relations.

The Chinese military has announced the start of a three-day “combat readiness patrol” to warn Taiwanese who want to permanently maintain the island’s de facto independence.

Taiwan split from China in 1949 after a civil war, and the United States severed official ties with Taiwan in 1979, while formally establishing diplomatic ties with the Beijing government.

The United States recognizes Beijing’s “one China” policy of claiming Taiwan, but not China’s claim to the island, and remains Taiwan’s main provider of military and defense aid.

The ruling Communist Party says the island is obliged to rejoin the mainland by force if necessary. Beijing says contacts with foreign officials have encouraged Taiwanese who want formal independence, a move the ruling party says will lead to war.

Chinese officials have condemned Tsai’s meeting with lawmakers and announced sanctions on two organizations that hosted her in the United States, but so far the immediate response from China has been less intense than Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August.

Gallagher said China had warned U.S. lawmakers not to attend talks with Tsai. China urges US to leave what it calls ‘wrong and dangerous path’ after meeting

Gallagher, a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq, said U.S. lawmakers would not be intimidated by China.

“It’s a fighting space to try to change ideology and again try to intimidate us into thinking we’re changing the status quo and pissing them off, when it’s just the opposite,” he said.

Gallagher said he hopes Congress will work to strengthen its military commitment to Taiwan. He said the U.S. should move faster to deliver weapons systems to Taiwan for defense.

One idea that emerged from the meeting, he said, was for the United States to help Taiwan use technology to build its own defense systems.

In 2022, China conducted its largest live-fire exercise in decades after Pelosi’s visit, including launching missiles over the island.

Chinese officials did not say whether the drills now underway would repeat previous drills that fired missiles into the sea, which disrupted shipping and airline flights. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)