:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/TRFCQWJKNVAU7EFC6HUSTV4FSI.jpg "Nancy Pelosi visits the Taiwan Parliament in her first official activity on the island")
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi arrived this Tuesday at Taiwan ignoring the warnings of China, which threatened retaliation, and assured that it arrived in the spirit of “peace for the region”.
“We come to Taiwan in friendship, we come in peace for the region, “Pelosi declared on Wednesday during a meeting with Tsai Chi-chang, Vice President of the Taiwan Parliament. The visit shows the “unconditional support” of the United States to the island, although it “does not contradict” Washington’s policy towards China explained the cabinet of Pelosi who belongs to President Joe Biden’s party and is second in line to the presidential succession.
The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry also assured that the visit shows Washington’s “solid” support for the island of 23 million inhabitants. The reaction of China, which considers Taiwan a rebellious province, was not long in coming. The Foreign Ministry stated that the United States was carrying out “extremely dangerous” actions and threatened retaliation.
A few hours later, she summoned US Ambassador Nicholas Burns and told him the country “will not sit idly by,” according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
“Taiwan is the Taiwan of China”, Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng reiterated to the US diplomat.
“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is on high alert and will launch a series of targeted military actions to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity and thwart external interference and separatist attempts at ‘independence of Taiwan,'” the Defense Ministry spokesman said in a statement.
China also indicated that its fighter planes had crossed the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, although according to Taiwanese authorities there were 21 incursions into the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), larger than the airspace of a country. Military authorities in Washington indicated that several US warships were sailing in the waters of the Taiwan region.
The United States “will pay the price”
China and Taiwan they have been separated in fact since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s communist troops defeated the nationalists, who took refuge on the island. In 1979, the United States recognized the government in Beijing as representing China, although it continued to give military support to Taiwan. Pelosi who is on an Asian tour, is the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan since her predecessor Newt Gingrich in 1997. The prospect of such a scale heated tensions between the two superpowers.
“The United States will bear the responsibility and pay the price for undermining China’s sovereignty and security,” a spokeswoman for Chinese diplomacy said a few hours earlier.
Russia affirmed that China has “the right to take the necessary measures to protect its sovereignty” and considered the visit of Pelosi to Taiwan as a “provocation”.
China has this year refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is facing stiff resistance backed by Western powers.
The “reunification” of China is a priority goal for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who last week formally told Biden over the phone to avoid “playing with fire.”
To back up its message, the Chinese military released a martial-sounding video online on Monday showing soldiers shouting in readiness to fight, fighters taking off, paratroopers jumping out of a plane or a hail of missiles annihilating multiple targets. The tensions on Tuesday caused the fall of world markets from Asia to Europe and the United States, with losses in the main stock markets and currencies, although oil was quoted higher.
“Right” to visit the island
Even the plane that took her to Taiwan It was the most followed in the history of the flight tracking website Flightradar24. the visit of Pelosi It was the subject of all kinds of conjecture in recent days and the Taiwanese government did not include it in its agenda. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday that Pelosi had the “right” to travel to the island.
Kirby warned of the possibility of China carrying out shows of force that could include firing missiles into the Taiwan Strait or “large-scale” incursions into Taiwanese airspace. The Defense Ministry of Taiwan assured that the territory has “decision, capacity and confidence” to protect the island.