US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has arrived in Taiwan – despite threats from Beijing of “serious consequences” for her visit.
She became the highest-ranking US official to visit the self-ruled island claimed by China in 25 years.
Her visit was closely watched by mainland China, and many people used the website Flightradar24 to track the plane she was on as it flew to Taiwan.
Ms. Pelosi and her delegation disembarked a US Air Force transport plane at Songshan Airport in downtown Taipei late Tuesday and were greeted by Taiwan’s Foreign Minister, Joseph Wu, and Sandra Oudkirk, the top US representative to Taiwan.
She is scheduled to meet Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, and parliament tomorrow and fly off the island in the afternoon.
Beijing has warned that the visit would weaken Sino-US relationsand the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it seriously violated China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In a statement released shortly after her arrival in Taipei late Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry said it had strongly opposed the US.
State media announced military exercises this weekend, and Chinese warplanes flew over the Taiwan Strait before her arrival.
Ms. Pelosi is on a tour of Asia that includes announced visits to Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. Her stop in Taiwan has not been announced but has been predicted by many.
Photo: AP
Photo: Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
China claims self-governing Taiwan as its own, and a State Department spokesman earlier this week said any visit by Ms. Pelosi would be a “gross interference in China’s internal affairs.” Country”.
“The People’s Liberation Army of China will never sit idly by,” they warned.
Ms. Pelosi’s visit speaks to the politician’s long history of confrontation with Beijing.
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Nancy Pelosi in 1991 in Tiananmen Square. Photo: AP
More than 30 years ago, she was a low-ranking senator when she sneaked out of an official delegation and angered the Chinese government by showing up in Tiananmen Square and unfurling banners honoring dissidents. was killed during the 1989 protests.
