Pelosi addresses the Taiwanese leadership and calls for increased inter-parliamentary cooperation

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taunted China in his own backyard Wednesday morning during an address to Taiwan’s parliament calling for “peace” and the “avoidance of conflict.”

China has blown up the US visit to Taiwan — the highest-level visit for 25 years — calling it a threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing responded with a series of military exercises, summoned the US ambassador to the capital and banned agricultural imports from Taiwan.

“We come to Taiwan in friendship,” Pelosi told the Taiwanese parliament. “We come in peace for the region. . . understand the value of peace and conflict prevention.

“And in terms of governance: we commend Taiwan for being one of the freest societies in the world, for its success in dealing with the COVID problem, which is a health problem, a security problem, an economic problem and a government problem. We congratulate you on that.”

Pelosi was later on Wednesday to meet with a former Tiananmen activist, a Hong Kong bookseller detained by China and a Taiwanese activist recently released by China, people familiar with the matter said.

“I’m just going back to Tiananmen Square for a moment. . . and we were there to specifically make the human rights statement,” she said. “But our visit was about human rights, about unfair trade practices, and about security issues of technology, dangerous technologies being transferred to countries of concern to rogue countries. So for us it has always been about safety, economy and governance over the years.”

On Tuesday, the White House kept the speaker at a distance while both parties insisted the US remains committed to its “one China policy,” which Beijing recognizes but allows for informal ties and defensive ties with Taipei.

“I’ll let the speaker speak for herself,” National Security Council representative John Kirby said of Pelosi’s testimony. “Our stance on Taiwan independence has not changed, that is, we do not support Taiwan independence.

“In a rare moment of bipartisan solidarity, 25 Republican senators joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to pledge their support for Tuesday’s trip.

“I believe she has every right to go,” McConnell said in the Senate, “and it was unseemly and counterproductive that President Biden and his aides publicly attempted to dissuade her.”

With wires