Taiwan defended President Tsai Ing-wen’s plan to meet with U.S. lawmakers led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday in California, as China vowed to take "resolute measures” in response.
"It’s the right of 23 million Taiwanese to have exchanges with democratic countries,” Taiwanese Presidential Office spokeswoman Lin Yu-chan said in a statement on Monday. "There is no room for China to comment.”
McCarthy, a California Republican, confirmed in a statement Monday that the expected meeting with a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers will take place at the Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California as Tsai passes through the state at the end of a trip that took her to New York, Guatemala and Belize.