Pelosi dismisses her visit as harmful to Taiwan, calls dispute “ridiculous”

The president of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has ruled out Friday that a visit to Taiwan has harmed the island and has described the dispute as “ridiculous”, assuring that the United States does not intend to change the status quo in the region.

Asked at a press conference whether she considered that her visit to Taiwan had not been beneficial to the island, the speaker of the House of Representatives has said that it is a “ridiculous” dispute, claiming that the Asian country is one of “the freest in the world.”

“We have said from the beginning that our representation here is not about changing the ‘status quo’ here in Asia. It is again about the Taiwan Relations Act and U.S.-China policy,” Pelosi has expressed during her visit to Japan on the last day of her Asian tour, according to a statement from her office.

On the other hand, Pelosi has agreed with the Prime Minister of Japan, Fumio Kishida, that both countries work together to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, the Japanese agency NHK has reported.

“We confirmed that Japan and the United States will continue to work closely together to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” said Kishida, who shared with Pelosi the importance of ensuring “a free and open Indo-Pacific”.

The Japanese leader also called on China to put an end to military exercises in Taiwan: “The actions of the Chinese side will have serious consequences for peace and stability in the region and the international community”.

The agreement between the two sides came on the last day of Pelo’s Asia tour, which has raised US tensions with China over his visit to the island of Taiwan, a territory the Chinese government claims as its own.

In the midst of this official visit, the Japanese government has denounced Thursday that five of the nine ballistic missiles launched by the Chinese Army in the framework of a series of military maneuvers have fallen in waters southwest of the island of Hateruma, in Okinawa, within the Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone.

Following this, Tokyo has made a diplomatic overture to Beijing and expressed concern over the Chinese military training, announced after Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, where she arrived Tuesday night.

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