Risking China's anger, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hosted Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday as a “great friend of America" in a fraught show of US support at a rare high-level, bipartisan meeting on US soil. Speaking carefully to avoid unnecessarily escalating tensions with Beijing, Tsai and McCarthy steered clear of calls from hard-liners in the US for a more confrontational stance toward China in defense of self-ruled Taiwan.