The awaited face-to-face between the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, and the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, was held yesterday in Los Angeles. The meeting took place at the "Ronald Reagan" Presidential Library in Simi Valley in California, near Los Angeles. Among the topics addressed, the need to accelerate the supply of arms to Taipei in the face of growing threats from China.

"We need to continue arms sales to Taiwan and make sure those supplies arrive in a very timely manner". "Secondly, we need to strengthen our economic cooperation, particularly in the fields of trade and technology", Tsai said at a press conference, hoping for the signing of a bipartisan agreement.

It was the highest-level meeting with a Taiwanese president on American soil since Washington re-established diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1979. Again, China did not fail to flex its muscles, to underscore its disappointment by emphasizing that it will vigorously (including militarily) and firmly pursue the "safeguarding of sovereignty and territorial integrity", said Mao Ning, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry.

In the hours following the meeting, in fact, the Chinese navy launched a massive three-day patrol operation in the Taiwan Strait. Even before the face-to-face between Tsai and McCarthy, Taipei's defense ministry had denounced that a group of Beijing aircraft carriers was in the waters off the southeast coast of the island.

On the same topic see the article published by AVIONEWS.