After infuriating China over her trip to Taiwan, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met South Korean political leaders in Seoul on Thursday but avoided making direct public comments on cross-Strait relations that could have further increased regional tensions.
Pelosi, the first incumbent House speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years, said Wednesday in Taipei that the American commitment to democracy on the self-governing island and elsewhere “remains ironclad.” In response, China on Thursday began military exercises, including missile strike training in six zones surrounding Taiwan, in what could be the biggest of their kind since the mid-1990s.
Later in the day, Pelosi planned to visit an inter-Korean border area that is jointly controlled by the American-led U.N. Command and North Korea, a South Korean official said requesting anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to media on the matter. Pelosi will speak by phone Thursday afternoon with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is on a vacation this week, according to Yoon’s office. No face-to-face meeting has been arranged between them. Yoon, a conservative, took office in May with a vow to boost South Korea’s military alliance with the United States and take a tougher line on North Korean provocations.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry called the Chinese drills “unreasonable actions in an attempt to change the status quo, destroy the peace and stability of the region.” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby sought to tamp down fears. He told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that U.S. officials “don’t believe we’re at the brink now, and there’s certainly no reason for anybody to be talking about being at the brink going forward.”
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