Published: Less than 50 min ago
Nancy Pelosi has landed in Malaysia, on an Asian trip where all the focus is on Taiwan. China has reacted angrily to reported plans for the speaker of the US House of Representatives to visit the island nation.
Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur is the second stop on the tour, after Singapore and before South Korea and Japan. But according to consistent sources to the media in the United States, today or tomorrow, Speaker Pelosi will also squeeze in a visit to Taiwan, which China sees as a breakaway territory.
China has warned the US to “play with fire” if Washington intensifies contacts with the democratic island nation of Taiwan. According to reports, Chinese warplanes have been acting threateningly in the strait between the Asian mainland and Taiwan.
However, the White House in Washington is trying to downplay the whole thing.
– There is no reason for Beijing to turn a possible visit that is in accordance with long-term US policy into some kind of crisis, or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait, says John Kirby, a spokesman for the US: s National Security Council, according to the AP news agency.
According to Taiwanese sources, Pelosi may continue to Taiwan this evening local time.