প্রকাশ: 03/08/2022
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meeting leaders in Taiwan
despite warnings from China, said Wednesday that she and other members of
Congress in a visiting delegation are showing they will not abandon their
commitment to the self-governing island.
“Today the world faces a choice between democracy and
autocracy,” she said in a short speech during a meeting with Taiwan’s President
Tsai Ing-wen. “America’s determination to preserve democracy, here in Taiwan
and around the world, remains ironclad.”
China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and opposes any
engagement by Taiwanese officials with foreign governments, announced multiple
military exercises around the island and issued a series of harsh statements
after the delegation touched down Tuesday night in the Taiwanese capital
Taipei.
Taiwan decried the planned actions.
“Such an act equals to sealing off Taiwan by air and sea …
and severely violates our country’s territorial sovereignty,” said Captain
Jian-chang Yu at the National Defense Ministry’s media briefing Wednesday
morning.
Pelosi’s trip has heightened U.S.-China tensions more than
visits by other members of Congress because of her high-level position as
leader of the House of Representatives. She is the first speaker of the house
to come to Taiwan in 25 years, since Newt Gingrich in 1997.
Tsai, thanking Pelosi for her decades of support for Taiwan,
presented the speaker with a civilian honor, the Order of the Propitious
Clouds.
“Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan
will not back down,” Tsai said. “We will firmly uphold our nation’s sovereignty
and continue to hold the line of defense for democracy.”
Tsai later said in a news conference, “Military exercises
are unnecessary responses.”
Shortly after Pelosi landed, China announced live-fire
drills that reportedly started Tuesday night, as well as a four-day exercise
beginning Thursday in waters on all sides of the island.
China’s air force also flew a relatively large contingent of
21 war planes, including fighter jets, toward Taiwan.
Pelosi addressed Beijing’s threats, saying that she hopes
it’s clear “while China has stood in the way of Taiwan going to certain
meetings, that they understand they will not stand in the way of people coming
to Taiwan as a show of friendship and of support.”
Pelosi noted that support for Taiwan is bipartisan in
Congress and praised the island’s democracy. She stopped short of saying that
the U.S would defend Taiwan militarily, emphasizing that Congress is “committed
to the security of Taiwan, in order to have Taiwan be able to most effectively
defend themselves.”
Her focus has always been the same, she said, going back to
her 1991 visit to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, when she and other lawmakers
unfurled a small banner supporting democracy, two years after a bloody military
crackdown on protesters at the square.
That visit was also about human rights and what she called
dangerous technology transfers to “rogue countries.”
Pelosi is visiting a human rights museum in Taipei that
details the history of the island’s martial law era later Wednesday before she
departs for South Korea, the next stop on an Asia tour that also includes
Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.
Pelosi, who is leading the trip with five other members of
Congress, met earlier Wednesday with representatives from Taiwan’s legislature.
“Madam Speaker’s visit to Taiwan with the delegation,
without fear, is the strongest defense of upholding human rights and
consolidation of the values of democracy and freedom,” Tsai Chi-chang, vice
president of Taiwan’s legislature, said in welcome.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to
tone down the volume on the visit, insisting there’s no change in America’s
longstanding “One-China policy,” which recognizes Beijing but allows informal
relations and defense ties with Taipei.
Pelosi said her delegation has “heft,” including Gregory
Meeks, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
from the House Intelligence Committee.
She also mentioned Rep. Suzan DelBene, whom Pelosi said was
instrumental in the passage of a $280 billion bill aimed at boosting American
manufacturing and research in semi-conductor chips — an industry in which
Taiwan dominates that is vital for modern electronics.
Reps. Andy Kim and Mark Takano are also in the delegation.
– AP/UNB
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