US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taipei last night and was reportedly scheduled to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), legislators and democracy advocates before departing later today.
The speaker departed from Kuala Lumpur yesterday afternoon and touched down at Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) at about 10:43pm, where she was greeted by Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮).
The stop marks the first time in 25 years that a sitting US House speaker is visiting Taiwan.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
Beijing has strongly condemned the visit, with Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) yesterday warning that the US “will bear the responsibility and pay the price for undermining China’s sovereign security interests.”
Her day is reportedly to start with an 8am meeting with Tsai.
An unnamed source cited by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) said that Pelosi would meet with lawmakers at a Legislative Yuan reception room at 9am, where she would give a televised public speech before holding a closed-door meeting with caucus conveners of the nation’s four main political parties.
Photo: AFP
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), who heads the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, has also been invited, they said.
Whether Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) — who was in quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19 after returning from overseas — could join the meeting would depend on the result of a rapid test, the source said.
Pelosi’s stop at the legislature would take about an hour, they said, after which she would speak with Tsai again from 10am to 11am at the Presidential Office Building.
Photo: screengrab from Twitter
At 11am, a news conference was planned at the Taipei Guest House before lunch with Tsai at noon.
Pelosi in the afternoon at Jingmei Human Rights Park in New Taipei City would meet a small group of democracy advocates who are outspoken about China’s human rights record, the Liberty Times reported.
The American Institute in Taiwan has been in contact with Chinese and Hong Kong democracy advocates in Taiwan to arrange for a meeting with Pelosi, the paper said, citing another unnamed source.
Photo: EPA and the Liberty Times
Lam Wing-kei (林榮基), former manager of Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay Books who was detained by Beijing in 2015, would attend the meeting, the source said, adding that Lee Ming-che (李明哲) — who spent five years in a Chinese prison before his release and return to Taiwan in April — and Wuer Kaixi — a Uighur student leader in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — were also contacted.
Lam said that he would visit Jingmei Human Rights Park today, adding that if he did meet Pelosi, he would suggest that the US government help young Hong Kongers leave the territory.
Pelosi is likely to leave Taiwan at about 5pm, sources said.
Photo: Jason Pan, Taipei Times
In a statement issued after her arrival, Pelosi said that her delegation’s visit "honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant Democracy."
"America’s solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy," it said.
The statement also noted that hers is one of several congressional delegations to visit Taiwan "and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy" guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques and the "six assurances."
Photo: RITCHIE B. TONGO, EPA-EFE
In Washington on Monday, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that nothing about Pelosi’s possible trip changed US policy toward Taiwan, and that Beijing was well aware that the division of powers within the US government meant Pelosi would make her own decisions about the visit.
“The speaker has the right to visit Taiwan,” Kirby told a White House briefing.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged China to “act responsibly.”
“If the speaker does decide to visit, and China tries to create some kind of a crisis or otherwise escalate tensions, that would be entirely on Beijing,” Blinken told reporters at UN headquarters in New York prior to her arrival.
“We are looking for them, in the event she decides to visit, to act responsibly and not to engage in any escalation going forward,” he said.
Speaking to Fox News on Monday, former US House speaker Newt Gingrich, who was the last sitting speaker to visit Taiwan in 1997, said that the Chinese Communist Party was unlikely to act on its extreme threats.
“The worst case — if they shot down her airplane, that would be literally an act of war. And we would have no choice except to retaliate massively,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich said that the US and its Indo-Pacific allies such as Australia would not hesitate to strike back, and China would likely face retaliatory attacks and economic repercussions.
“So the Chinese are not necessarily in a strong position to try to bully us. And I think that we need to recognize that,” he said.
The US failing to stand up to “dictatorships” could inadvertently send the wrong message and cause Beijing to push the envelope by trying to occupy Taiwan, he added.
Additional reporting by Chen Yu-fu and agencies
FIREPOWER: On top of the torpedoes, the military would procure Kestrel II anti-tank weapons systems to replace aging license-produced M72 LAW launchers Taiwan is to receive US-made Mark 48 torpedoes and training simulators over the next three years, following delays that hampered the navy’s operational readiness, the Ministry of National Defense’s latest budget proposal showed. The navy next year would acquire four training simulator systems for the torpedoes and take receipt of 14 torpedoes in 2027 and 10 torpedoes in 2028, the ministry said in its budget for the next fiscal year. The torpedoes would almost certainly be utilized in the navy’s two upgraded Chien Lung-class submarines and the indigenously developed Hai Kun, should the attack sub successfully reach operational status. US President Donald Trump
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
RSS