China deploys warships near Taiwan after its president meets U.S. House speaker

April 6 (UPI) -- China sent three navy vessels into waters near Taiwan on Thursday, Taipei's Defense Ministry said, hours after the democratic island's president met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

President Tsai Ing-wen met with McCarthy and a bipartisan contingent of lawmakers at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., on Wednesday amid angry protests from Beijing.

China sent its Shandong aircraft carrier through the Bashi Channel separating Taiwan from the Philippines and into the island's southeast waters ahead of the meeting on Wednesday, Taipei defense officials said.

The Defense Ministry detected three additional Chinese navy ships early Thursday morning in waters separating the island from the Chinese mainland, it said, adding that a KA-28 anti-submarine warfare helicopter also crossed its air defense identification zone.

During a parliamentary session on Thursday, Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said the Shandong was about 200 nautical miles east of the island.

Chiu added that the USS Nimitz, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that has been in the region conducting trilateral drills with Japan and South Korea, was also just 400 nautical miles to the east of Taiwan.

Neither the United States nor China had released information on their carrier deployments as of Thursday afternoon.

Beijing considers the democratic island of 23 million a wayward province and has vowed to seize control of it by force if necessary. Taiwan has never been a part of the mainland People's Republic of China, which was founded in 1949, and rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims.

Incursions by Chinese aircraft into Taiwan's air defense identification zone have become an almost-daily occurrence in recent years, a tactic that Taipei's military calls "gray zone" warfare meant to strain the island's defense capabilities and wear down its morale.

In response, Taiwan has boosted its defense spending and engagement with the United States, which does not recognize the island diplomatically but sells Taipei weapons. The Tsai-McCarthy meeting marked the second time the Taiwanese president has met with a House Speaker in less than a year, following a high-profile visit by Rep. Nancy Pelosi in August.

Civil defense training courses are also gaining in popularity as Taiwanese citizens prepare for the possibility of a Chinese invasion.

Beijing reacted angrily to Tsai's meeting with U.S. lawmakers, calling it "the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations."

"China will take strong and resolute measures to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement released Thursday after the meeting.