President Joe Biden shared Monday that he is “concerned” about China’s reaction to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) visit to Taiwan.
The president discussed the recent trip during a conversation with reporters Monday morning ahead of his visit to Kentucky to meet with families affected by flooding.
“I’m not worried but I’m concerned that they’re moving as much as they are,” said Biden. “But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more than they are.”
Pelosi’s visit to offer U.S. assurances of support for Taiwan’s democracy roused the ire of China, prompting Beijing to schedule live-fire military drills last week that continued into Monday, reported Reuters. She was the first House speaker to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich’s 1997 trip. China considers the island nation its own territory.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry has condemned China’s military drills, demanding that Beijing “pull back from the edge.”
“In the face of military intimidation created by China, Taiwan will not be afraid nor back down, and will more firmly defend its sovereignty, national security, and free and democratic way of life,” the ministry said, Reuters reported.
The island’s ministry said on Monday it had detected 37 Chinese Air Force planes and 13 Chinese navy ships both in and near the Taiwan Strait, according to the publication, and 21 of these planes had entered Taiwan’s air defense zone.
“Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy,” Pelosi said during a meeting with Taiwan’s president. “America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.”
“We have to talk from strength,” she added during a press event in Taiwan. “We have to talk from what Taiwan has been so good about – as being technologically advanced, whether it’s in business or security. And we have to show the world.”
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said last week that as a result of Pelosi’s visit, more punishments for both the U.S. and Taiwan would follow.
“As for the specific countermeasures, what I can tell you is that they’ll include everything that should be included,” Hua said, according to People’s Daily, a China state-affiliated media outlet. “The measures in question will be firm, vigorous and effective, and the U.S. side and Taiwan independence forces will continue feeling them.”
The Chinese Communist Party repeatedly warned against the visit, and during a phone call last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Biden that the United States must not “play with fire.”
Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Wire.