Republican US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy confirmed he would meet Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in California on Wednesday, defying dire warnings from China that he would be "playing with fire."
Tsai is stopping over in the United States en route to Central America, where she has met the leaders of Guatemala and is visiting Belize before meeting with McCarthy.
His office said Monday the "bipartisan" meeting will take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, just outside Los Angeles.
China has warned the United States over Tsai's trip and in August carried out major military exercises around the island of Taiwan, a self-governing democracy it claims as part of its territory.
McCarthy, the top Republican in Congress who as House speaker is second in line to the presidency after the vice president, had earlier vowed to follow Democrat Nancy Pelosi, whom he succeeded as speaker, by traveling to Taiwan.
The meeting in his home state of California had been viewed as a middle ground that would avoid inflaming tensions with Beijing.
But Xu Xueyuan, the charge d'affaires of China's embassy to Washington, told reporters last week Washington risked "serious confrontation" no matter whether US leaders visited Taiwan or the reverse.
"The US keeps saying that transit is not a visit and that there are precedents, but we should not use past mistakes as excuses for repeating them today," she said.
She urged Washington "not to repeat playing with fire on the Taiwan question," alluding among other things to last year's visit to Taiwan by Pelosi.
- 'PEACE AND STABILITY' -
After arriving in New York last Wednesday, Tsai was greeted by flag-waving Taiwanese expatriates as she addressed a banquet.
"We have demonstrated a firm will and resolve to defend ourselves, that we are capable of managing risks with calm and composure and that we have the ability to maintain regional peace and stability," she told the dinner.
Laura Rosenberger, who heads the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto embassy in the absence of diplomatic relations, welcomed Tsai to New York but the State Department said it did not expect officials to meet her.
China claims the democratic island as part of its territory to be retaken one day and, under its "One China" principle, no country may maintain official ties with both Beijing and Taipei.
Pelosi's visit last year triggered an angry response from Beijing, with the Chinese military conducting drills at an unprecedented scale around the island.
The United States remains Taiwan's most important ally -- and its biggest arms supplier -- despite switching its diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.
Analysts told AFP the US stopover was coming at a key time, with Beijing having ramped up military, economic and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan since Tsai came to power in 2016.
"The loss of official relations with third countries will be offset by a deepening of Taiwan's unofficial relations," said James Lee, a researcher on US-Taiwan relations at Academia Sinica.
US media reported that around 20 US lawmakers planned to accompany the speaker to the meeting in California.
