White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the United States does not seek to turn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan into a crisis with China.
Ms Jean-Pierre made the remark during a White House press briefing on Wednesday after Ms Pelosi became the highest-ranking US government official to visit Taiwan.
“There's no reason for Beijing to turn this visit, which is consistent with long standing US policy and into some sort of crisis,” Ms Jean-Pierre told reporters.
The remarks come after state-owned media in China called Ms Pelosi’s trip an “opening salvo of war”. While Taiwan is a self-governing island off the coast of China with its own government and constitution, China considers it a breakaway province. In response, China vowed “consequences” for the visit, announcing military drills surrounding the island.
But the White House said that this was not reason for conflict.
“There is no reason to do that,” Ms Jean-Pierre said. “We have been very clear there's no change in our one China policy, which is guided by the time the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.”
Ms Pelosi defended her visit in a statement, saying that Taiwan has been excluded from global meetings such as the World Health Organisation because of objections from the Chinese Communist Party.
“While they may prevent Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from traveling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing Democracy, to highlight its many successes and to reaffirm our commitment to continued collaboration,” she said.
Despite concerns from the White House, 25 Senate Republicans defended her visit to Taiwan. Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri highlighted in a press conference on Tuesday that the last highest-ranking official to visit Taiwan was former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“I'm about to use four words in a row that I haven't used in this way before and those four words are 'Speaker Pelosi was right' when she decided to include Taiwan on her visit to Asia,” he said.
Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked during the briefing why Republicans were more enthusiastic about her visit than the White House.
“Members of Congress have the right to travel wherever they choose are part of this, to make sure we give them a thorough and complete briefing when it comes to the geopolitics of the region or the state or when it comes to national security,” she said.
-Sravasti Dasgupta contributed to this report.
