The plane carrying the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, took off at 6:01 p.m. local time (10:01 a.m. GMT) from Taipei’s Songshan airport, after a visit in which the official has promised that “the United States will not abandon Taiwan” and that has outraged Beijing.
(Also read: Nancy Pelosi affirms that she arrived in Taiwan in ‘peace for the region’)
Before boarding the plane and continuing her tour of Asia with stops in South Korea and Japan, the politician said on her Twitter account: “Make no mistake. America’s commitment to the people of Taiwan will remain unchanged now and for decades to come.”
(Also: Why is the world tensely awaiting China’s response to Pelosi’s challenge?)
Pelosi, who spent less than 24 hours on the island, visited the Taiwanese Parliament this morning and later met with the president of the island, Tsai Ing-wen, who presented him with an award for his “support” of the territory.
After the meeting with Tsai, Pelosi declared that Taiwan, which she described as a “model for the region”, is a “contrast” with China, while praising the “success of the Taiwanese people and their courage to become a country more democratic”.
(Read on: When and how China lost Taiwan (and what is the status of the ‘rogue island’))
In the afternoon, the official met in the Taiwanese capital with human rights activists, including Wuer Kaixi, one of the leaders of the student movement that led the protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, repressed by China in 1989.
At the event, which took place in Taipei’s Jingmei Park, Pelosi also spoke with Lam Wing-kee, the bookseller arrested and interrogated in China for selling books banned by Beijing in his Hong Kong bookstore, and with activist Lee Ming-kee. che, imprisoned for “subversion” in China between 2017 and 2022.
(Also read: China responds to Pelosi’s visit: “There will be forceful measures”)
In the last hours, Beijing has responded to the trip, which it has described as “deplorable betrayal” and “farce”, with a military deployment in the Taiwan Strait and with sanctions on imports from the island.
Taiwan, with whom the US does not maintain official relations, is one of the main sources of conflict between China and the US, mainly because Washington is the main supplier of weapons to the island and would be its greatest military ally. in case of war conflict with the Asian giant.
(Of interest: Chinese Embassy in Colombia attacks Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan)
China insists on “reunifying” the People’s Republic with the island, which has been governed autonomously since the Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists withdrew there in 1949 after losing the civil war against the communists and continued with the regime of the Republic of China, culminating in the transition to democracy in the 1990s.
EFE
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