As Reuters reported, McCarthy became the highest-ranking US official to meet the Taiwanese leader on US soil since 1979. China has previously threatened unspecified retaliation.

The Speaker of Parliament said after the meeting that he was honored to meet the President. According to him, US relations with Taiwan are stronger than they were in his lifetime. According to the Taiwanese president, the support they are receiving shows that the island is not isolated. “We are not isolated and we are not alone,” the president was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse. Tsai added that Taiwan is grateful to have the United States on its side. Al Jazeera also thanked the friends of Congress who stood by them.

Republican McCarthy, the third-ranking American politician, welcomed President Tsai this morning local time at the Ronald Reagan Library near Los Angeles. The Taiwanese president stopped in the United States on her way back from visiting Guatemala and Belize, two countries that have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

China regards Taiwan as its province and calls on other countries in the world not to deal with Taiwanese officials and not to show recognition of the island’s independence. Last August, Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan, to which China responded with large-scale military maneuvers. At the end of March, the Speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies, Markita Pekarova Adamova, was also on the island with a large delegation.