US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to arrive in Taiwan on Sunday in a show of support for Taipei amid concerns over cross-strait relations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, media reports said yesterday.
Should Pelosi’s rumored trip go ahead, she would be the first sitting House speaker to visit Taiwan since 1997, when Republican Newt Gingrich met with then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) would not confirm the visit, saying only that the government had always extended an invitation to US friends to visit.
Photo: AFP
“We will make details of any such trip public when we are able to do so,” Ou said.
Pelosi’s office also declined to say whether she was traveling to Taipei when contacted by Bloomberg News, citing longstanding security protocols.
Japanese media reports said that Pelosi is scheduled to arrive in Japan later this week to hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, as the two nations seek to enhance coordination of their response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Pelosi was originally set to visit South Korea afterward, but decided to visit Taipei on Sunday instead, Fuji News Network said.
Sources told the network that the Taiwan trip was designed as a display of US support amid fears that China might try to emulate Moscow and launch an invasion across the Taiwan Strait.
Pelosi has repeatedly shown her support for Taiwan as speaker, a post she has served in since 2019, and from 2007 to 2011.
In late January, Pelosi spoke with Vice President William Lai (賴清德) via video link, assuring him that Taiwan enjoyed bipartisan support in the US Congress.
Beijing yesterday lodged a protest with Washington over reports of Pelosi’s planned visit.
“If she does visit, China will take strong measures and the consequences will be borne by the US,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) told a regular briefing in Beijing, without providing details.
Former Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡錫進) wrote in an opinion piece that such a trip would represent the “most serious provocation by Washington” over Taiwan since Lee visited the US in 1996.
Hu deemed Gingrich’s visit less serious as he belonged to a different political party than then-US president Bill Clinton, although party affiliation is irrevelant to a speaker’s seniority in US politics.
“While the crisis in Ukraine is ongoing, the US is deliberately taking the offensive toward China,” Hu wrote. “China cannot back down this time.”
He called on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to close down Taiwanese airspace on Sunday by buzzing the nation with aircraft, including from the “direction of Pelosi’s plane.”
Also yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that a Swedish parliamentary delegation is to visit Taiwan next week.
The 12-member delegation, which is to visit from Sunday to Thursday next week, would be jointly led by Boriana Aberg, head of the Swedish-Taiwanese Parliamentarian amity association, and Charlie Weimers, a member of the European Parliament, Ou said.
The delegation would also include Kerstin Lundgren, deputy speaker of the Swedish Parliament, and Swedish parliamentarians Bjorn Soder, Lars Adaktusson, Markus Wiechel, Asa Coenraads, Ann-Sofie Alm, Lars Puss and Alexander Christiansson, Ou said.
While in Taipei, the delegation is to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃), Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and other senior government officials.
It is also to hold a seminar with a local defense security think tank, and meet Swedish business and student representatives, as well as other expatriates in Taiwan, Ou said.
The ministry welcomes the upcoming trip and believes the visit will further enhance Taiwan-Sweden cooperation and exchanges, Ou added.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
RSS