SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — After angering China over her trip to Taiwan, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with South Korean political leaders in Seoul on Thursday but avoided direct public comments on cross-strait relations , which could further increase regional tensions.
Pelosi, the first sitting House speaker to visit Taiwan in 25 years, said Wednesday in Taipei that America’s commitment to democracy on the self-ruled island and elsewhere “remains ironclad.” In response, China announced it would begin its largest military maneuvers targeting Taiwan in more than a quarter century.
After visiting Taiwan, Pelosi and other members of Congress flew to South Korea – a key US ally where some 28,500 US troops are stationed – on Wednesday night as part of an Asian tour that included stops in Singapore and Malaysia.
She met with South Korean National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo and other senior members of parliament on Thursday. After the hour-long meeting, Pelosi spoke about the bilateral alliance forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War and legislative efforts to support efforts to strengthen ties, but did not directly mention her visit to Taiwan or the Chinese protests.
“We also come to tell you that a friendship, a relationship that began out of urgency and security many years ago, has become the warmest of friendships,” Pelosi said at a joint news conference with Kim. “We want to advance security, the economy and governance in the inter-parliamentary way.”
Neither Pelosi nor Kim answered questions from reporters.
Kim said he and Pelosi share concerns about North Korea’s growing nuclear threats. He said the two agreed to support their governments’ pursuit of denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula based on both strong deterrence against North Korea and diplomacy.
Later in the day, Pelosi plans to visit an inter-Korean border area jointly controlled by the US-led UN Command and North Korea, said a South Korean official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media on the matter.
If that visit happens, Pelosi would be the highest-level American to visit the Joint Security Area since then-President Donald Trump went there in 2019 for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Located in the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile) wide Demilitarized Zone, a buffer created at the end of the Korean War, the JSA is the site of past bloodshed and the site of many conversations. US presidents and other senior officials have frequently traveled to the JSA and other border areas to reaffirm their security commitment to South Korea.
Any critical statement by Pelosi on North Korea is sure to provoke a furious response from Pyongyang. On Wednesday, North Korea’s foreign ministry criticized the United States for its visit to Taiwan, saying “the current situation clearly shows that the US’s brazen interference in the internal affairs of other countries.”
Pelosi will speak by phone Thursday afternoon with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is on vacation this week, according to Yoon’s office. A face-to-face meeting has not been arranged between them. Yoon, a conservative, took office in May on a promise to strengthen South Korea’s military alliance with the United States and take a tougher stance on North Korean provocations.
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has angered China, which views the island nation as a breakaway province to be annexed by force if necessary. China views visits by foreign officials to Taiwan as recognition of its sovereignty.
“The world today faces a choice between democracy and autocracy,” Pelosi said in a brief speech during a meeting with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday. “America’s resolve to preserve democracy, here in Taiwan and around the world, remains ironclad.”
The Biden and Pelosi administrations have said the United States remains committed to the so-called one-China policy, which recognizes Beijing but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. The administration discouraged but did not prevent Pelosi from visiting.
The military exercises that China launched in response to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan began on Thursday, the Chinese military said. They were expected to be the largest aimed at Taiwan since 1995, when China fired missiles in a large-scale exercise to show its displeasure with then-Taiwanese President Li Teng Hui’s visit to the US
In addition, China has already sent fighter jets and other military aircraft to Taiwan and has blocked imports of citrus fruits and fish from Taiwan.
Tsai has strongly opposed Beijing’s military exercises, parts of which will enter Taiwanese waters.
“Faced with deliberately increased military threats, Taiwan will not back down,” Tsai said at her meeting with Pelosi. “We will firmly uphold the sovereignty of our nation and continue to hold the line of defense of democracy.
Taiwan’s defense ministry on Thursday called the Chinese exercises “unwise actions in an attempt to change the status quo, disrupt peace and stability in the region.”
“Our national military will continue to increase its level of vigilance and each squadron will conduct its normal daily training at its usual duty stations,” it added.
In Washington, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby tried to allay fears. He said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday that U.S. officials “don’t believe we’re on the brink now, and there’s certainly no reason for anyone to be talking about being on the brink in the future.”
Speaking about Beijing’s threats, Pelosi said she hoped it was clear that while China has prevented Taiwan from attending certain international meetings, “they understand that they will not interfere with people coming to Taiwan as a sign of friendship and support’.
Pelosi noted that congressional support for Taiwan is bipartisan and praised the island’s democracy. She stopped short of saying the US would defend Taiwan militarily and stressed that Congress was “committed to Taiwan’s security so that Taiwan can defend itself most effectively.”
On Thursday, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations called for calm in the Taiwan Strait, urging against any “provocative actions”. ASEAN foreign ministers, meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for a regional forum, said they were concerned that the situation could “destabilize the region and could ultimately lead to miscalculations, serious confrontation, open conflicts and unpredictable consequences among the great powers’.
Pelosi’s focus has always been the same, she said, going back to a 1991 visit to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, when she and other lawmakers unfurled a small pro-democracy banner two years after a bloody military crackdown on protesters in the square . That visit was also about human rights and what she called dangerous technology transfers to “rogue countries.”
Pelosi’s trip has heightened U.S.-China tensions more than visits by other members of Congress because of her position as House leader. The last House Speaker to visit Taiwan was Newt Gingrich in 1997.
China and Taiwan, which split in 1949 after a civil war, have no formal relations but multibillion-dollar business ties.
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Wu reported from Taipei Taiwan.
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Associated Press writer David Rising in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, contributed to this report.
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