Can’t let China pressure Taiwan: Pelosi

Washington, August 11

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said the US just cannot allow China to establish a "new normal" to put pressure on Taiwan through the kind of military drills and warplane incursions that Beijing launched after she visited the self-governing island.

China on Wednesday announced it has "successfully completed" its week-long and unprecedented military drills that have essentially encircled Taiwan.

We didn't go there to talk about China. We went there to praise Taiwan. We went there to show our friendship. China cannot isolate Taiwan. —Nancy Pelosi, US speaker

Initially, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) announced the war games in the busy Taiwan Strait from August 4 to 7, the day after Pelosi, who is the highest-ranking US leader to have visited Taiwan in 25 years, left Taipei after high-level meetings. It later kept extending them, keeping the breakaway island on tenterhooks. "What we saw with China is that they were trying to establish sort of a new normal. And we just can't let that happen," Pelosi said, referring to the provocative drills.

The Chinese military exercises involved hundreds of warplanes, dozens of naval ships, including an aircraft carrier group with a nuclear submarine in tow, amid assertions by the official media here that such war games in the busy Taiwan Strait will be a new normal.

Pelosi's trip to Taipei angered Beijing, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. Taiwan has accused China of using the recent drills as practice for an invasion. "We didn't go there to talk about China. We went there to praise Taiwan. And we went there to show our friendship to say, China cannot isolate Taiwan," Pelosi asserted during a press conference.

"The visit delivered a clear statement that America's commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific is unshakeable," Pelosi noted. — PTI

Us rethinK on tariffs

China’s military drills around Taiwan have led the US to recalibrate thinking on whether to scrap some tariffs or potentially impose others on Beijing, setting those options aside for now, sources said

Ships in Taiwan Strait

Even as China announced completion of its military drills, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry claimed it had detected 21 Chinese military aircraft and six Chinese naval ships in and around Taiwan Strait on Thursday.

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