The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday extended regards on behalf of Taiwan to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has tested positive for COVID-19, requiring her to cancel a planned visit to Asia, which reportedly would have included a stop in Taiwan.
Pelosi, 82, was scheduled to lead a US Congressional delegation to visit Japan this weekend and was reportedly planning to arrive in Taiwan on Sunday.
However, the trip has been postponed because she has tested positive for COVID-19, her spokesman Drew Hammill said on Thursday.
Photo: Bloomberg
“After testing negative this week, Speaker Pelosi received a positive test result for COVID-19 and is currently asymptomatic. The Speaker is fully vaccinated and boosted, and is thankful for the robust protection the vaccine has provided,” Hammill wrote on Twitter.
The speaker is quarantining according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance, and encourages everyone to get vaccinated and boosted, as well as get tested regularly, Hammill said in his messages on Twitter.
Presidential Office spokesman Xavier Chang (張惇涵) said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) gave her sincere regards to Pelosi, who is a “truly good friend of Taiwan,” and wished Pelosi well.
Neither Hammill nor Chang confirmed reports that Pelosi had planned to make a stop in Taiwan. Pelosi would have been the highest-ranking elected official from the US to visit Taiwan in the past few years.
Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the US, Taiwan’s de facto embassy, conveys its well-wishes to Pelosi.
China reacted strongly to the idea of Pelosi visiting Taiwan. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday that the visit would be a “malicious provocation to China’s sovereignty” and “consequences will be borne by the US.”
Wang’s comment was absurd, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said.
China’s authoritarian regime does not understand democracy nor does it know how to respect public opinion, the ministry in Taipei said, adding that Beijing only knows how to browbeat other nations and their democratically elected officials.
Taiwan is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China, nor does Taiwan claim ownership of China, it said, adding that Beijing’s interference in Taiwan’s relations with foreign countries through bullying and threats only repulses the international community.
Such rhetoric does not contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the region, and is causing cross-strait relations to deteriorate, it said.
Additional reporting by Yang Cheng-yu
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
Recent movements by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have been “highly unusual,” but the military maintains a grasp of the situation, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said on Friday, after the military for the first time said it was monitoring troop movements in China’s Dacheng Bay (大埕灣). The minister gave the remarks to reporters before appearing at the legislature on the first day of its new session. The Ministry of National Defense on Thursday evening released an air force surveillance photograph of a PLA Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine aircraft, and said it was monitoring the PLA Rocket Force and ground
‘ABNORMITY’: News of the military exercises on the coast of the Chinese province facing Taiwan were made public by the Ministry of National Defense on Thursday Taiwan’s military yesterday said it has detected the Chinese military initiating a round of exercises at a bay area in coastal Fujian Province, which faces Taiwan, since early yesterday morning and it has been closely monitoring the drills. The exercises being conducted at Fujian’s Dacheng Bay featured an undisclosed number of People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes, warships and ground troops, the Ministry of National Defense said in a press statement. The ministry did not disclose what kind of military exercises are being conducted there and for how long they would be happening, but it did say that it has been closely watching
China’s Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong has asked foreign consulates in Hong Kong to submit details of their local staff, which is more proof that the “one country, two systems” model no longer exists, a Taiwanese academic said. The office sent letters dated Monday last week to consulates in the territory, giving them one month to submit the information it requires. The move followed Beijing’s attempt to obtain floor plans for all properties used by foreign missions in Hong Kong last year, which raised concerns among diplomats that the information could be used for