Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, on Tuesday, arriving to controversial stop in her tour in Asian countries which has become a flashpoint amid rising tensions between the US and China.
Pelosi and other members of Congress stepped off a US military plane that landed in Taipei on Tuesday evening, where they were greeted by a contingent of Taiwanese officials on the tarmac. The plane traveled from Kuala Lumpur on a flight path that avoided the South China Sea and the Chinese mainland, according to the tracking website. FlightAware.
Pelosi visited Taiwan’s parliament on Wednesday local time, meeting with Taiwan’s deputy speaker of the parliament, Tsai Chi-chang.
“When you say I’m a good friend of Taiwan, I take that as a great compliment, but I’m receiving it on behalf of my colleagues,” Pelosi said, adding that she was “very proud” of the group traveling with her.
ANN WANG / REUTERS
Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan has been shrouded in secrecy and angered Beijing, raising the possibility of a military response to the visit. The White House has said it had no control over Pelosi’s decision to visit the island and has insisted there has been no change in US policy toward Taiwan and the Chinese government.
As second in line to the presidency, Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official to visit the island in 25 years. The California Democrat’s history with Beijing dates back to 1991, when she displayed a pro-democracy banner in Tiananmen Square in defiance of Chinese officials.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan / AP
In a statement shortly after the plane landed, Pelosi said her visit was aimed at honoring “America’s unwavering commitment to support Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.”
“Our discussions with Taiwan’s leadership will focus on reaffirming our support for our partner and promoting our shared interests, including the advancement of a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” he said. “America’s solidarity with Taiwan’s 23 million people is more important today than ever as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.”
The speaker stressed that the visit “in no way contradicts long-standing US policy” towards Taiwan and China, and said the US “continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo”.
In a comment for The Washington Post explaining her reason for the visit, Pelosi criticized Beijing’s actions in Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang and across the continent, saying China’s “abysmal human rights record and disregard for the rule of law continue, as President Xi Jinping consolidates power.”
A Taiwanese government official said Pelosi was expected to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen and members of the legislature in Taipei. The US delegation is expected to stay Tuesday night in the capital and hold meetings throughout the day Wednesday before departing.
The Taipei 101 skyscraper, the island’s tallest iconic building, sent messages welcoming Pelosi to the capital ahead of her arrival Tuesday evening.
Bloomberg
Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan part of China, and Chinese officials have warned they would consider Pelosi’s visit a major provocation.
China’s Ministry of Defense said the People’s Liberation Army will soon begin military exercises on Taiwan Island, including “long-range live ammunition firing in the Taiwan Strait and the organization of regularly guided fire tests in the eastern waters of the island of Taiwan.” A statement from the ministry said the exercise was intended to serve as “a solemn deterrent against the recent major escalation of negative actions by the United States on the Taiwan issue, and a serious warning to the forces of ‘Taiwan independence’ that they seek “independence”.
During a two-hour phone call with President Biden last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded Pelosi cancel the trip. At the beginning of July, Mr. Biden said US military officials thought it was “not a good idea” for Pelosi to visit Taiwan right now.
A US Navy official said on Tuesday that three US warships were in waters east of Taiwan conducting routine operations, including the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, a destroyer and an amphibious assault ship.
Seconds Reuters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Monday that its military “would not stand idly by” if Pelosi visited. During a daily briefing, Lijan said a visit by the “No. 3 official of the US government” would “cause an atrocious political impact.”
On Monday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that Pelosi was traveling on a US military aircraft and said she had been briefed on Taiwan.
“There have been direct conversations with the speaker and her staff before she left at various levels of the national security establishment,” Kirby said, though he would not confirm any plans by her to travel to Taiwan. “The president did not speak directly to the speaker about this trip.”
Kirby said “the speaker makes his own decisions” when asked if the military still didn’t think it was a good idea for her to go. “What we did was provide his context, analysis, facts, information, so he could make the best possible decision for each stop on each overseas trip,” Kirby added.
But Kirby warned about China’s “saber-toothing,” including military provocations such as possible missile launches across the Taiwan Strait and large-scale incursions into Taiwan’s airspace. He also mentioned diplomatic escalations, such as Beijing’s public assertion last week that the Taiwan Strait is not an international waterway.
“Some of these actions will continue along the trend lines we’ve seen in recent years, but some could be of a different scope and scale,” Kirby said. “The last time Beijing fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait was in 1995 and 1996 after Beijing reacted provocatively to Taiwan’s president’s visit to deliver a speech at his alma mater.”
The split between Taiwan and the mainland government began in 1949, when Chinese Nationalists fled to the island amid a civil war with the Chinese Communist Party. The Taiwanese government considers itself the legitimate government of China. Beijing considers the island a separatist rogue state and part of its own territory.
The US recognized Beijing as the legitimate Chinese government in 1979 and does not support Taiwan’s independence, but has maintained informal ties with the government, following a policy of “strategic ambiguity”. A 2018 law known as the Taiwan Travel Act formalized the US-Taiwan relationship, but below the level of formal diplomatic relations.
Pelosi is not the first speaker of the House to visit Taiwan. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, visited in 1997. Other US officials have made low-profile visits to Taiwan to show support for the island, but Pelosi’s visit has drawn far more attention.
Ramy Inocencio, Nancy Cordes, Kathryn Krupnick, Rebecca Kaplan and Eleanor Watson contributed to this report.
