China threatened resolute countermeasures on Wednesday following a scheduled meeting between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen during his upcoming stop in Los Angeles on an international trip.

Diplomatic pressure on Taiwan has increased recently, with Beijing stripping Taipei’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies and sending military fighter jets to the island on an almost daily basis. Earlier this month, Honduras established diplomatic relations with China, leaving Taiwan with just 13 countries that recognize it as a sovereign state.

Leaving Taiwan on Wednesday afternoon, Tsai saw her 10-day tour of America as an opportunity to showcase Taiwan’s commitment to democratic values ​​on the global stage.

I want to tell the whole world that democratic Taiwan will resolutely protect the values ​​of freedom and democracy, and will remain a force for good in the world, continue a cycle of goodness, and strengthen the resilience of democracy in the world, they told reporters before boarding the plane. External pressures will not hinder our determination to deal with the world.”

Tsai will tour New York on Thursday before heading to Guatemala and Belize. She is expected to stop in Los Angeles on April 5 on her way back to Taiwan, at which time the meeting with McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) is tentatively scheduled.

The stops in the US are the most watched on her journey.

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Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, denounced Tsai’s stopover in the US on her way to visit diplomatic allies in Central America and demanded that no US officials meet her.

We are firmly against this and will take decisive countermeasures, Zhu told a press conference on Wednesday. The US should refrain from organizing Tsai Ing-wen’s transit visits and not even contacting US officials, and take concrete steps to fulfill its solemn commitment not to support Taiwan’s independence.

Senior U.S. officials in Washington and Beijing have underlined to their Chinese counterparts that transits through the U.S. during broader international trips by the President of Taiwan have been routine over the years.

During such unofficial visits in recent years, Tsai has met members of Congress and the Taiwanese diaspora and been welcomed by the president of the American Institute in Taiwan, the US government-run non-profit organization that maintains unofficial US relations with Taiwan.

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Tsai toured the US six times between 2016 and 2019 before international travel slowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to those visits, China rhetorically lashed out at the US and Taiwan.

However, the scheduled meeting with McCarthy has sparked fears of a heavy-handed Chinese response amid heightened friction between Beijing and Washington over US support for Taiwan, trade and human rights issues.

Following a visit to Taiwan by then Speaker of Parliament Nancy Pelosi in August, Beijing launched missiles over the area, deployed warships across the centerline of the Taiwan Strait and conducted military exercises in a simulated blockade of the self-governing island. Beijing also suspended climate talks with the US and restricted military-to-military communications with the Pentagon.

McCarthy has said he will meet Tsai when she is in the US and is not ruling out the possibility of traveling to Taiwan to show her support.

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Beijing sees the US’s official contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the islands de facto permanently independent, a move US leaders say they do not support. Pelosi (D-San Francisco) was the most senior elected U.S. official to visit the island since then Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997. Under Washington’s official One China policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing’s view that it has sovereignty over Taiwan, but consider Taiwan’s status as unsettled. Taipei is an important partner for Washington in the Indo-Pacific.

US officials are increasingly concerned that China is trying to fulfill its long-standing goal of forcibly taking Taiwan under its control. The parties split during a civil war in 1949, and Beijing sees American politicians conspiring with Tsai’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party to make the separation permanent and hinder China’s rise to power as a world power.

The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which governs U.S. relations with the island, does not require Washington to intervene militarily if China invades, but makes it U.S. policy to ensure Taiwan has the means to defend itself and to avoid any unilateral prevent change of status by Beijing .

Tensions rose earlier this year when President Biden ordered a Chinese spy balloon to be shot down after it crossed the mainland United States. The Biden administration has also said US intelligence findings show China is sending weighing weapons to Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine, but has no evidence yet that Beijing has done so.

However, China has provided Russia with an economic lifeline and political support, and Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in Moscow earlier this month. That was the first face-to-face meeting between the Allies since the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.

The Biden administration has postponed a planned visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken following the balloon controversy, but has indicated it would like to get such a visit back on track.