3rd August 2022

Nancy Pelosi stands up to China, praises Taiwan’s ‘avoidance of conflict’

Pelosi’s tour has been aimed at reassuring allies in the region, but her visit to Taiwan has been shrouded in controversy.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood up to China in its own backyard on Wednesday morning during an address to Taiwan’s parliament that called for “peace” and the “avoidance of conflict.”

China blasted the US visit to Taiwan — the highest-level visit in 25 years — calling it a threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing responded with a flurry of military exercises, summoning the US ambassador to the capital and banning the import of agricultural imports from Taiwan.

“We come in friendship to Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan’s parliament. “We come in peace for the region . . . understanding the value of peace and the avoidance of conflict.

“And in terms of governance: We commend Taiwan for being one of the freest societies in the world, for your success in addressing the COVID issue, which is a health issue, a security issue, an economic issue and a governance issue. We congratulate you for that.”

Pelosi was set to meet later on Wednesday with a former Tiananmen activist, a Hong Kong bookseller who had been detained by China and a Taiwanese activist recently released by China, people familiar with the matter said.

“I just go back to Tiananmen Square for a moment . . . and we were there specifically making the statement on human rights,” she said. “But our visit was about human rights, was about unfair trade practices, and it was about security issues of technology, dangerous technologies being transferred to rogue countries to countries of concern. So our — over the years, it’s always been about security, economy and governance.”

On Tuesday, the White House kept the speaker at arm’s length while both parties insisted the US remains committed to its “One China policy,” which recognizes the Beijing government as the sole legal authority in the country and acknowledges its claim to Taiwan — but does not admit Communist sovereignty over the island. The policy also does not take Taipei’s position that Taiwan is a separate, independent country.

“I’ll let the speaker speak for herself,” National Security Council rep John Kirby said of Pelosi’s statements. “Nothing has changed about our stance on Taiwan independence, which is that we do not support Taiwan independence.”

On Monday, Kirby said Pelosi’s visit is “totally consistent with our longstanding One China policy” but that the US would “oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo.”

“We’ve been very clear that nothing has changed about our One China policy, which is guided, of course, by the Taiwan Relations Act [of 1979], the Three Joint U.S.-PRC Communiqués, and the Six Assurances,” Kirby said.

“We said we do not support Taiwan independence.  And we’ve said, as I said again yesterday, that we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means,” he added.

In a rare moment of bipartisan solidarity, 25 Republican senators joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in voicing their support for the trip Tuesday.

“I believe she has every right to go,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, “and it’s been unseemly and counterproductive for President Biden and his aides to have publicly sought to deter her from doing so.”

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