ABC News: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
TAIPEI, Taiwan — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meeting leaders of Taiwan<\/a> despite warnings from China<\/a>, said Wednesday that she and other members of Congress in a visiting delegation are showing they will not abandon their commitment to the self-governing island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pelosi, the first U.S. speaker to visit the island in more than 25 years, courted Beijing’s wrath with the visit and set off more than a week of debate over whether it was a good idea after news of it leaked. In Taipei on Wednesday she remained calm but defiant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cToday the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy,\u201d she said in a short speech during a meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. \u201cAmerica\u2019s determination to preserve democracy, here in Taiwan and around the world, remains ironclad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and opposes any engagement by Taiwanese officials with foreign governments, announced multiple military exercises around the island, parts of which will enter Taiwanese waters, and issued a series of harsh statements after the delegation touched down Tuesday night in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taiwan decried the planned actions, saying they violated the island’s sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSuch an act equals to sealing off Taiwan by air and sea, such an act covers our country\u2019s territory and territorial waters, and severely violates our country\u2019s territorial sovereignty,\u201d Capt. Jian-chang Yu said at a briefing by the National Defense Ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chinese military exercises, including live fire, are to start Thursday and be the largest aimed at Taiwan since 1995, when China fired missiles in a large-scale exercise to show its displeasure at a visit by then-Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taiwanese President Tsai responded firmly Wednesday to Beijing\u2019s military intimidation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFacing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down,\u201d Tsai said at her meeting with Pelosi. \u201cWe will firmly uphold our nation\u2019s sovereignty and continue to hold the line of defense for democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n China’s official Xinhua News Agency announced the military actions Tuesday night, along with a map outlining six different areas around Taiwan. Arthur Zhin-Sheng Wang, a defense studies expert at Taiwan\u2019s Central Police University, said three of the areas infringe on Taiwanese waters, meaning they are within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) of shore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ABC News: TAIPEI, Taiwan — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meeting leaders of Taiwan despite warnings from China, said Wednesday that she and other members of Congress in a visiting delegation are showing they will not abandon their commitment to the self-governing island. Pelosi, the first U.S. speaker to visit the island in more than 25 years, courted Beijing’s wrath with the visit and set off more than a week of debate over whether it was a good idea after news of it leaked. In Taipei on Wednesday she remained calm but defiant. \u201cToday the world faces a choice between… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26172,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26170\/revisions\/26172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}