Taiwan has rejected Beijing’s threats over a gathering between President Tsai Ing-wen and US Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy, evaluating China to the Chilly Warfare-era Soviet Union.

“Evil is powerless if the great are unafraid,” stated Chang Tun-han, deputy secretary-general of Taiwan’s presidential workplace, quoting a 1983 speech by which the late US president Ronald Reagan branded the Soviet Union an “evil empire”.

He added: “It’s the proper of the 23mn folks of Taiwan to have exchanges with democratic nations, and there’s no room for China to remark.”

Chang’s unusually blunt feedback got here throughout Tsai’s go to to Belize. Beijing had condemned the Tsai-McCarthy assembly, including it could “take resolute steps to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.