In Japan, Pelosi Finds Her Voice, Speaking Up on Free China

Pelosi did not hesitate to express her strongest feelings after she had been compelled to dance around the whole issue of Taiwan the day before in South Korea — also, like Japan a staunch American ally.

AP/Eugene Hoshiko
Speaker Pelosi, center, at the American Embassy at Tokyo, August 5, 2022. AP/Eugene Hoshiko

SEOUL — Speaker Pelosi, on the final stop of her East Asia swing, struck in Tokyo the responsive chord that she failed to find here in South Korea after her much-anticipated sortie to the Republic of China on Taiwan.

While the Chinese were still conducting military exercises off Taiwan’s shores by way of punishment for her defiance of Beijing’s no-go warnings, the speaker and Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, commiserated over the five Chinese missiles that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone, well south of Japan’s southernmost island.

True, the missiles all splashed harmlessly into the sea, but that was enough for Mr. Kishida to say that Communist China “threatens our national safety and security” and to agree with Mrs. Pelosi on the need “to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” 

Mrs. Pelosi did not hesitate to express her strongest feelings after she had been compelled to dance around the whole issue of Taiwan the day before in South Korea — also, like Japan a staunch American ally. In fact, Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-yeol, had the notable distinction of being the only leader of the five countries that Mrs. Pelosi visited who simply wouldn’t see her.

The other countries included Singapore and Malaysia, plus the Republic of China on Taiwan, the island province to which Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek fled with his defeated army while Mao Zedong was leading his Red army to victory on the mainland in 1949. 

Mrs. Pelosi must have been relieved to have been able to mention the word “Taiwan” after having been advised to shut up about the place while in Korea. Mr. Yoon may be all for conducting joint war games with American and Korean troops, but he was unbelievably wary of annoying the Chinese, an overwhelming presence even if North, not South, Korea is their ally and protectorate.

Heaven forbid, is the official South Korean thinking, if we should upset China about Taiwan when China’s our biggest trading partner and might play a crucial role in persuading North Korea’s Kim Jong-un not to conduct his seventh nuclear test, much less attack us.

Interestingly, Mrs. Pelosi, standing beside Mr. Kishida, said that she and the other five members of congress in her delegation had gone to South Korea “to pay our respect to our 28,000 troops who are there and their families, to thank them for their courage and thank the government for their hospitality.”

Oh yes, she said, she and her entourage had visited Panmunjom, the truce village on the North-South line 40 miles north of Seoul. While there, she said, she and her congressional colleagues “focused a great deal on the threat of North Korea in terms of their aggression.”

She didn’t have to add that the visit to Panmunjom was conducted almost in secret, with none of the usual press on hand, though her people did distribute images of the visit, including her meeting with the U.S. commander in Korea, General Paul LaCamera.

Unbelievably, she had not a word to say about the South Koreans, including Mr. Yoon, who did find time during his staycation to chat with her for 40 minutes on the phone about the need for mutual “deterrence” — against North Korea.

Mrs. Pelosi’s verbiage changed markedly in Japan. Unlike the reception she got in Seoul, she said her delegation “had a very impressive meeting” with Mr. Kishida, “congratulating him” for all he had done since taking over as prime minister.

She shed the constraints that had silenced her in Korea when she talked about the war games the Chinese have been playing ever since her visit to Taiwan.

“The Chinese made their strikes, probably using our visit as an excuse,” she said. “The Chinese have tried to isolate Taiwan, particularly by stopping Taiwan participating in the World Health Organization” — even as Covid-19 rages. “They will not isolate Taiwan by preventing us to travel there.”


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