Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is departing tomorrow for a tour of the Americas. She will begin her trip with a stop in New York City, after which she will visit two Central and South American nations. On her way home, she plans to stop in Los Angeles where she is expected to hold a meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. That last item on her agenda has China up in arms (as usual) and they are threatening unspecified “resolute countermeasures” in response. Hopefully, that response will be little more than a sternly-worded letter, but given the current state of American foreign affairs, we should probably brace ourselves for something worse. (Associated Press)

China has threatened “resolute countermeasures” over a planned meeting between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Speaker of the United States House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during an upcoming visit in Los Angeles by the head of the self-governing island democracy.

Diplomatic pressure against Taiwan has ramped up recently, with Beijing poaching its dwindling number of diplomatic allies while also sending military fighter jets flying toward the island on a near daily basis. Earlier this month, Honduras established diplomatic relations with China, leaving Taiwan with only 13 countries that recognize it as a sovereign state.

Tsai is scheduled to transit through New York on March 30 before heading to Guatemala and Belize. On April 5, she’s expected to stop in Los Angeles on her way back to Taiwan, at which time the meeting with McCarthy is tentatively scheduled.

The last meeting between Taiwan’s president and the Speaker of the House took place when Nancy Pelosi visited the Island in 2022. At that time, China suggested that they might need to shoot the Speaker’s plane down, but in the end, all they did was fire a few more missiles over the Strait in Taiwan’s direction.

But as the saying goes, that was then and this is now. A lot of water has passed under the bridge in the past year and tensions between Washington and Beijing are higher than they have been in decades. China was already on edge after we shot down their spy balloon and Xi Jinping has since then cozied up to Vladimir Putin, who is already angry about all of the military aid we’re sending to Ukraine.

So what could China do that would be a “resolute countermeasure” short of invading Taiwan while the President is away? They clearly have some options. The easiest and most immediate choice could be to start openly sending lethal aid to Russia to use against Ukraine, countering some of the effectiveness of NATO contributions. They could also announce new sanctions on American officials and companies.

A more damaging response could involve China’s continued control of so much of the supply chain. China has a significant majority of the rare earth metals that are used in all manner of modern technologies, including wind and solar power. They could hike the prices of those materials as a form of economic warfare or cancel shipments entirely. Of course, that would backfire on them by reducing their own revenue as a result.

An even more aggressive move could involve Honduras, which recently cut its ties to Taiwan and established a partnership with China. Honduras is within spitting distance of Mexico and if China announced that it was going to start building a significant diplomatic outpost there or even a military installation, there wouldn’t be much we could do about it.

Our relationship with China is deteriorating quickly. I’m not suggesting this is a bad thing because the Chinese Communist Party is a toxic influence on the world and we would do well to rid our dependence upon them as much as possible. But our economic fates remain intertwined for now and China can definitely use that fact to its advantage if they wish to do so. The Biden administration needs to tread carefully for the moment. Hopefully, Uncle Joe won’t try to solve it by sending Kamala Harris to Beijing after she gets back from Africa. World War 3 would probably break out before she got back.