Team News Riveting
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday concluded her 19 hours whistle-stop tour of Taiwan while furious Beijing swung into action to tighten its grip over the self-ruled island.
Pelosi and her delegation boarded the U.S. Air Force Boeing C-40C at Taipei Songshan Airport at 5.29 p.m. with South Korea the next stop on her whirlwind tour of Asia. Her visit now enters the history books as the first by a sitting U.S. House Speaker in the 25 years since Newt Gingrich came in 1997
Meanwhile, Beijing is ramping up its military intimidation campaign against Taiwan. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said it would start days of drills and the exercises would take place in six different areas around Taiwan from Thursday noon to Sunday noon.
The Chinese aviation authorities had alerted the foreign airlines to avoid the “danger zones” during the period. The fresh drills come after the PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command conducted air and sea exercises near the island that began on Tuesday evening just ahead of Pelosi arrival in Taipei for a brief.
Beijing is infuriated with the visit as it sees the island as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of it.
The U.S authorities were cautious with the visit as it feared China could close the air space to block Air Force Boeing. Pelosi’s plane reportedly avoided a confrontation with PLA warplanes by flying east across Indonesia and south of the Philippines, before turning north and hugging the east coast of the Philippines.
According to Taiwanese newspapers, when the aircraft neared Taiwan’s Hualien County, it headed north along Taiwan’s east coast and then turned northwest and crossed over Yilan County, New Taipei City, and Taoyuan before reaching its destination at Taipei Songshan Airport.
Pelosi and her delegation landed at Taipei Songshan Airport at 10.44 pm on Tuesday evening.
