Pelosi heads for Singapore, but is silent on Taiwan | World News,The Indian Express

Biden’s aides said he had decided against asking Pelosi directly to cancel her trip, largely because of his respect for the independence of Congress, forged during his 36 years in the Senate.

Written by: David E. Sanger and Vivian Wang

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi began a fraught tour of Asia on Sunday, one that administration officials say they now expect will include a stop in Taiwan, despite China’s increasingly sharp warnings in recent days that a visit to the self-governing island would provoke a response, perhaps a military one.

Pelosi was scheduled to arrive in Singapore on Monday, after a weekend stopover in Hawaii to consult with American commanders responsible for the Indo-Pacific. She said in a statement that she was planning to travel on with a congressional delegation for high-level meetings in Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, and did not mention Taiwan.

But it would not be unusual to omit Taiwan from an announcement given security concerns, and President Joe Biden’s aides said she was expected to proceed with the plan for the highest-level visit by an American official to the island in 25 years. Pelosi could still change her mind about traveling to Taiwan, administration officials said, but added that seemed unlikely.

Biden’s aides said he had decided against asking Pelosi directly to cancel her trip, largely because of his respect for the independence of Congress, forged during his 36 years in the Senate. He is also clearly reluctant to back down in the face of Chinese threats, including Beijing’s warning that the United States was “playing with fire,” which followed Biden’s nearly 2 1/2-hour conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.

https://indianexpress.com/article/world/pelosi-heads-for-singapore-but-is-silent-on-taiwan-8063818/

---