House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday defended her trip to Taiwan after China’s backlash, saying Chinese President Xi Jinping is “acting like a scared bully.”
The visit inflamed tensions with China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory. China views trips by foreign government officials to Taiwan as an acknowledgment of the island’s sovereignty and warned the trip would have an “egregious political impact.” China performed live-fire military exercises in the Taiwan Strait after Pelosi’s departure.
Asked by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie if the trip was “worth it,” Pelosi replied: “Absolutely, without any question.”
“I have overwhelming bipartisan support for our visit to Taiwan, as Speaker of the House and with the distinguished delegation that I went there with. We were very well received. Thousands of people in the streets.”
She said “what the Chinese are doing is what they usually do.”
Twenty-six Senate Republicans, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), signed a statement in support of Pelosi’s trip last week.
“We support Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan,” the lawmakers said. “For decades, members of the United States Congress, including previous Speakers of the House, have travelled to Taiwan. This travel is consistent with the United States’ One China policy to which we are committed. We are also committed now, more than ever, to all elements of the Taiwan Relations Act.”
Pelosi noted that a group of senators, including chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez, traveled to Taiwan earlier this year.
“Did anybody make a fuss?” she asked.
“It was bipartisan, it was high-powered, including the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee — nobody said a word,” she said. “If they can ignore a trip of five senators in a bipartisan way, why would they decide on my trip, that it would be different. … There’s something wrong with this picture.”
Pelosi’s trip made her the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
She said Xi “has his own insecurities” and will not control the schedule of members of Congress.
She later told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that the Chinese president is “in a fragile place.”
“He has problems with his economy. He is acting like a scared bully,” she said.