China urges McCarthy not to visit Taiwan

China is warning House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) against visiting Taiwan after reports that the GOP leader is planning a trip later this year to the island, which is a flashpoint in the rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.

“We urge certain individuals in the U.S. to earnestly abide by the one-China principle,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement Monday, indirectly referring to McCarthy’s plans, adding China is “opposed to any official interactions with Taiwan.”

The Chinese response follows a Punchbowl News report last week that the Pentagon is in the “early stages” of planning McCarthy’s visit to Taiwan, possibly this spring.

McCarthy’s visit would mirror one by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last year which also drew ire from the Chinese government and further strained tensions with the U.S.

It also comes as House Republicans stake out a hard-line position on China, with the new Congress establishing a select committee on U.S.–China economic relations as one of its first actions earlier this month.

“China is the No. 1 country when it comes to intellectual property theft,” McCarthy said on “Meet the Press” in November. “All the other nations combined, China steals more than them. We will put a stop to this and no longer allow the administration to sit back and let China do what they are doing to America.”

The committee will “expose and fight against the Chinese Communist Party’s cyber, trade, and military threats against America,” McCarthy tweeted last month.

China claims Taiwan — a self-governing democratic island nation off the coast of China — has an illegitimate government and that China has rightful control over the island. As Chinese President Xi Jinping expands his power within China, fears are rising that he will seek to exert control over Taiwan in the coming years, through economic, military or other means. 

While the U.S. officially adheres to the “one China” policy, which does not recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan, the U.S. has consistently supported Taiwan both economically and militarily as a democratic bulwark against the authoritarian Chinese government.

President Biden has repeatedly suggested that he would send U.S. troops to help repel a potential Chinese invasion of the island. 

Upon Pelosi’s visit to the Taiwanese capital Taipei last August, which came with broad bipartisan support, China responded with a massive show of force, including air and sea drills and a potential cyberattack on the Taiwanese government.

Chinese officials called Pelosi’s visit “like playing with fire,” at the time.

Those drills have only increased in recent months, including a record number of Chinese aircraft drawing near Taiwanese airspace in December. That may have been in response to the Biden administration’s announcement of an additional $425 million in arms for Taiwanese defense, made weeks before. That sale has received bipartisan praise, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing the Biden administration for more Taiwan aid.