Youngkin to meet with Taiwan’s president

Amid rising tensions with China, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin will meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on his first international trade mission this month.

Youngkin will travel to Taipei City, Taiwan; Tokyo; and Seoul, South Korea, from April 24 to April 29, according to a Tuesday news release.

“I’m excited to represent the commonwealth in my first trade mission to Asia that will focus on economic development opportunities, our shared priorities and national security,” Youngkin said in a statement. “Taiwan, Japan and South Korea represent critical markets that will advance economic growth and prosperity in Virginia.”

Youngkin’s announcement comes on the heels of bellicose responses from China’s government over U.S. House speakers meeting with Tsai. In August 2022, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Tsai in Taiwan, despite China’s announcement it would begin live-fire military drills encircling Taiwan as a result. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy plans to meet with Tsai Wednesday. Tsai landed in New York on March 29 and stayed through April 1, visited Guatemala and Belize, and is set to return to the U.S., landing in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening.

The meeting would “be an assault on the political foundation of Sino-U.S. relations,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles told The Wall Street Journal on Monday. “This is the first red line that must not be crossed.”

In late 2022, Youngkin pulled Virginia from consideration for a $3.5 billion Ford Motor Co. electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant over concerns about the Chinese company that would operate the plant, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd. The plant could have created 2,500 jobs in Pittsylvania County. In February, Ford announced it had chosen Michigan for the project.

Prior to Youngkin’s term, every Virginia governor for at least the last 20 years led a foreign trade mission within his first year. Youngkin’s decision to skip the July 2022 Farnborough International Airshow, held outside London, was also a deviation from previous administrations. In late June 2022, Youngkin’s chief of staff, Jeff Goettman, decided instead to send Virginia Secretary of Commerce Caren Merrick, according to The Washington Post.

In fall 2022, Youngkin told Virginia Business, that while he expected to go on foreign trade missions in the future, “I believe that the best opportunities for the commonwealth right now are for us to get our economic situation sorted out and to help the businesses that are here [to] grow and attract businesses that want to come to the United States or to Virginia.”

Virginia has 133 business establishments from Japan, 25 from South Korea and five from Taiwan, according to a news release.