China Threats Over Taiwan Trip Fail to Intimidate

Members of the U.S. House delegation meeting with Taiwanese leaders seemed unconcerned with Chinese threats over the visit, The Hill reports.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., arrived in Taipei on Wednesday with a bipartisan group of Congress members and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who had been visiting the U.S.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, shrugged off threats from the Chinese Communist Party over his meeting with Tsai to discuss U.S. weapons shipments, the Hill reported.

"Being here, I think, is a signal to the Chinese Communist Party that the United States supports Taiwan, and that we're going to harden Taiwan, and we want them to think twice about invading," McCaul told reporters.

Members of the delegation were sent threatening text messages about the trip and heard rumors of a "Chinese escort" while in flight.

"We're not gonna let this intimidation ... get to us," McCaul said. "That's just really intimidation, saber rattling."

McCarthy and dozens of Republicans and Democrats met with the Taiwanese president Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Los Angeles, California, then appeared with her at a press conference.

McCarthy called the united front of the "greatest importance" in an interview with NBC News on Thursday.

"You've watched in a House being very divided, united on this issue," he said. Both parties, he added, "want to make sure that the world continues to foster peace, freedom, and democracy."

Mainland China, run by the Communist Party, considers Taiwan one of its territories. Taiwan considers itself a separate entity.

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