US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will host a high-profile meeting with Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen in California today despite the risk of provoking fresh military exercises by China around the island.
The meeting will mark the high point of a 10-day trip that has seen Tsai travel to New York as well as her central American allies Guatemala and Belize.
But only 13 countries currently recognise Taiwan and they are coming under increasing pressure to switch allegiance to Beijing.
Paraguay’s president last year called on Taiwan to invest $1bn in his country to help him resist “enormous” pressure to recognise China while last week Beijing hosted Honduras’s foreign minister for an official switching ceremony.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s former president Ma Ying-jeou has been visiting China while Tsai has been away. It is the first ever visit to the Communist country by a sitting or retired Taiwanese president.
Today’s meeting will take place at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley in California and will be attended by a bipartisan group of 17 members of Congress.
The deputy secretary-general of Taiwan’s presidential office, Chang Tun-han, quoted former US president Ronald Reagan yesterday as part of a rhetorical broadside that compared China with the cold war-era Soviet Union.
“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid,” Chang said, quoting from a 1983 speech by the late president.
China’s consulate in Los Angeles late yesterday called Tsai’s trip “a political stunt”, adding that a meeting with McCarthy would be “another serious violation of the one-China principle” and would “undermine the political foundation of China-US relations”.
China’s comments raise expectations of further military exercises to threaten Taiwan on a scale not seen since McCarthy’s predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, visited the island in August.
Today’s Big Read is on Taiwan’s deepening political divide over the US and China. Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:
Macron-Xi meeting: Emmanuel Macron begins a state visit to China. Before leaving Paris, Macron spoke to Joe Biden about the forthcoming trip.
Economic data: The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index and the latest on the US trade deficit.
Company results: Consumer goods company ConAgra will report third-quarter earnings.
Passover: The Jewish holiday starts later today and ends tomorrow evening.
As always, thank you for reading FirstFT. Let us know if you have any feedback at firstft@ft.com.
Five more top stories
1. Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on the US legal system and the judge presiding over his case in New York after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. He also described the special prosecutor investigating his role in the January 6 riots as a “lunatic” and called the black local prosecutor probing his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia a “racist”. Catch up with all the FT’s coverage of yesterday’s events here.
2. Jamie Dimon has criticised regulators for incentivising banks to load up on government securities and imposing flawed stress tests. In his annual shareholder letter, the JPMorgan boss also said the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse risked undermining confidence in the banking industry.
More banking news: The chair of UBS has said the takeover of Credit Suisse would entail “significant execution risks”. Colm Kelleher was speaking at the Swiss bank’s annual shareholder meeting.
3. Johnson & Johnson has proposed an $8.9bn settlement to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its talcum powder caused cancer in what would be the largest product liability settlement in bankruptcy history, according to lawyers.
4. ExxonMobil’s new low-carbon businesses could one day be more lucrative than its fossil fuel production, a top executive at the US oil major said yesterday, as it laid out ambitious plans to generate tens of billions of dollars from biofuels, hydrogen and carbon capture within a decade.
5. Wisconsin has elected a new liberal judge to its highest court, tilting the bench’s balance of power in a vote that was widely seen as a test of sentiment on abortion rights in the Midwestern swing state. Just south of Wisconsin’s state border in Illinois, Chicago voters chose the progressive Democrat Brandon Johnson to run the third largest city in the US.
The big interview
This week Ari Emanuel sealed a $21bn deal to acquire WWE and combine it with the mixed martial arts business UFC to create a combat-entertainment juggernaut. It is the latest bold transaction for Emanuel, who worked his way up from the mailroom at the CAA talent agency to become one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. Emanuel explained his reasoning for the deal when he spoke to the FT.
We’re also reading . . .
Opinion: The US risks reversing nine decades of hugely successful policy that lifted tens of millions out of poverty by waging war on trade, writes Martin Wolf.
Somalia conflict: President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud told the FT he was confident his new military offensive against al-Shabaab would “defeat” the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group.
Tesla’s car batteries: The company is disrupting an industry dominated by China with a differently shaped power cell, making it cheaper to produce.
Chart of the day
Sterling rose to a 10-month high against the US dollar yesterday, helped by recent signs of resilience in the UK economy, making the pound the best-performing developed market currency so far in 2023. The dollar index, which measures the currency against a basket of six peers, has declined 1.6 per cent since the start of the year.
Take a break from the news
You can make a decent Martini for a couple of quid. So why are prices soaring above £20? Alice Lascelles goes inside the madness of the £25 Martini.
Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Emily Goldberg
Source: Economy - ft.com
