A curious sight greeted Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as they met at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in California on Wednesday.

Alongside a larger group of pro-Taiwan supporters, a throng of Chinese Communist Party supporters gathered to protest the meeting. In an inexcusable failure of security, the Simi Valley Police Department seems to have abandoned the management of the two protest groups to a few clearly overwhelmed security officers. The officers struggled to keep the two groups separated as tensions grew. One pro-Beijing protester even used his Communist China flag as a makeshift spear.