US Lawmaker Compares Xi to Hitler in Meeting With Taiwan’s VP

(Bloomberg) -- US Representative Michael McCaul compared Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Adolf Hitler while standing alongside Taiwan’s vice president, who is set to compete for the ruling party in an election next January.

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“This struggle for global power, the balance of power that we find ourselves in today often reminds me of my father’s generation, often referred to as the greatest in the United States,” McCaul, a Republican who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said at a meeting Thursday with Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-te.

“Then we had Hitler and today we have Putin and Chairman Xi,” McCaul added, referring also to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The comments risk upsetting China, which has responded to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s stop in Los Angeles, where she met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, in a much more restrained way than when Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei last year.

See: China Restraint on Taiwan Shows Xi Has Bigger Concerns Right Now

China has begun scaling back the economic and military pressure it has applied to Taiwan in recent years. That change is mostly because the opposition Kuomintang — Beijing’s preferred negotiating partner — has a shot at winning the island’s presidential election next year for the first time in a more than decade.

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party is expected to nominate Lai as its candidate later this month.

McCaul is leading a bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers on a visit to Taiwan. Protocol would require him to meet with Tsai first, but since Tsai is traveling, he met Lai instead. McCaul and Tsai are set to meet Saturday.

--With assistance from Francesca Stevens.

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