REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
As rumors swirl that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress may be jetting off to Taiwan in the coming days, China is threatening a forceful retaliation. But U.S. lawmakers have their own message for China and President Xi Jinping: Don’t mess with us.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, warned that if China has learned any lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing ought to stand down.
“China is playing with fire there if they learn the wrong lesson from Ukraine, if they think that they can violently violate Taiwan’s territorial integrity that they wouldn’t suffer reputational and economic damage,” Swalwell told The Daily Beast.