The Times view on Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan: Beijing’s Bluster
Taiwan #Taiwan
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, speaks at the presidential palace in Taipei today
TAIWAN PRESIDENTIAL PALACE/EPA
On a trip to Beijing in 1991, two years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Nancy Pelosi and two other members of the US House of Representatives unfurled a banner dedicated to “those who died for democracy in China”. Now Speaker of the House, Ms Pelosi has elicited criticism for travelling to Taiwan this week as head of a congressional delegation. This allegedly provocative gesture has prompted China to announce military drills in seas about ten miles from the island. That charge against Ms Pelosi is spurious. Her brief visit, which concluded today, was a principled expression of solidarity with a people under continual threat from a huge autocratic state.
The US has long maintained a delicate and even Delphic approach to Taiwan. Since 1979