Taiwan | The plane announced a pro-China message when the Taiwanese president and Speaker McCarthy were meeting in the sky

of Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen and the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, a Republican Kevin McCarthy met on Wednesday in the city of Simi Valley, California, near Los Angeles.

China already criticized the meeting in advance, because China would not like to see any diplomatic or political expressions of support for Taiwan, which China considers its own.

Tensions between China and Taiwan were also noticeable at street level at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, which served as a meeting place. Taiwanese supporters waved the flags of Taiwan and the flags of Hong Kong, which has been subjected to Chinese repression, and chanted Jiayou Taiwan –shouts of encouragement, news agency Reuters reported.

After McCarthy and Tsai had gone inside the library, a small plane rented by China supporters circled in the sky towing a banner that read: “One China! Taiwan is part of China!”

The text referred to the so-called “one China principle” demanded by China, according to which there is only one country in the world bearing the name of China and Taiwan is a part of it.

of Taiwan official name is Republic of Chinawhile Beijing-led China is called People’s Republic of China. The two Chinas drifted apart in the civil war of the 1940s, which ended with the victory of the Communists and the “liberation” of mainland China.

The representatives of the Kuomintang, or the National Party, who lost the war fled to Taiwan and started to run their own country there, which has developed into a vibrant and prosperous democracy of 24 million inhabitants.

China’s Charge d’Affaires of the US Embassy Xu Xueyuan stated on Monday that the pending meeting between Tsai and McCarthy would lead to a “serious confrontation” between the US and China. Xu warned that the US should not “play with fire again”.

By playing with fire again, he referred to the previous speaker of the House of Representatives that happened last year Nancy Pelosi for a visit to Taiwan. The incumbent McCarthy is a Republican and Pelosi is a Democrat.

In August of last year, right after Pelosi’s visit, China organized exceptionally large military exercises near Taiwan.

The dispute over Taiwan has been feared to lead to a major war between China and the United States.

in Brussels visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference on Wednesday that China should not use Tsai’s trip to the United States as an excuse to ratchet up tensions, Reuters reported.

Blinken in an interview with the Euronews channel statedthat a Chinese attack on Taiwan would hit “literally every country in the world.”