TAIPEI, Taiwan – As Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved around Taiwan’s capital with her entourage on Wednesday, attending meeting after meeting, the people of Taiwan hid her from nearly every step of the way. Street.
Many people have come to support her or to denounce her. Others are just curious. Some cheered with excitement at the US support for Taiwan that Ms. Pelosi’s visit represented. Others shouted that she was causing unnecessary military tension with China.
Susan Hung, a retired financial consultant, was part of a crowd of hundreds outside Taiwan’s Legislature, where Ms. Pelosi met with lawmakers in the morning. Ms. Hung spent hours at the airport on Tuesday night, hoping to “see Pelosi in person” and is now trying to catch a glimpse of her again – so far to no avail.
Hung, 58, said: “She is getting old and still trying to come to Taiwan, so I want to take the time to see her,” said Hung, 58, adding that she is a supporter. Speakers.
Another retiree in the crowd, Li Kai-ti, a former academic, held a homemade banner calling Ms Pelosi a fake. He accused her of “seeing Taiwan as another Ukraine” and “considering the people of Taiwan as cannon fodder”.
“If you’re serious about freedom and democracy, why don’t you resume diplomatic relations with Taiwan?” Mr. Li, 71 years old said.
On the other side of the Legislature, pro-China protesters blabbed that Ms Pelosi was causing the “Taiwan Strait crisis”. One of their large banners reads “The United States should not interfere in China’s internal affairs,” a line commonly used by Chinese government officials.
Outside President Tsai Ing-wen’s office, where Ms. Pelosi was next, the scene was more peaceful with a tighter security presence. People take photos as the cars carrying Ms. Pelosi down the empty boulevard in front of the historic structure, built more than 100 years ago when Taiwan was a Japanese colony.
Later in the day, Ms. Pelosi heads to the National Museum of Human Rights, where she is expected to meet people who have been detained by the Chinese government. Chiu Ta, 91, a retired art history professor who was waiting outside the museum when Ms. Pelosi arrived, noted that the site had served as a detention center for dissidents in the past. Taiwan’s long years of martial law.
“This human rights museum is representative and a record of the past dictatorship that represses human rights,” he said, adding that many political prisoners have become government officials after they became political prisoners. Taiwan becomes a democracy.
“Those who are persecuted by the Communist Party are friends of Taiwan,” he said.
