AGL 40.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.16 (-0.4%)
AIRLINK 129.53 Decreased By ▼ -2.20 (-1.67%)
BOP 6.68 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.15%)
CNERGY 4.63 Increased By ▲ 0.16 (3.58%)
DCL 8.94 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (1.36%)
DFML 41.69 Increased By ▲ 1.08 (2.66%)
DGKC 83.77 Decreased By ▼ -0.31 (-0.37%)
FCCL 32.77 Increased By ▲ 0.43 (1.33%)
FFBL 75.47 Increased By ▲ 6.86 (10%)
FFL 11.47 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (1.06%)
HUBC 110.55 Decreased By ▼ -1.21 (-1.08%)
HUMNL 14.56 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (1.75%)
KEL 5.39 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (3.26%)
KOSM 8.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.58 (-6.46%)
MLCF 39.79 Increased By ▲ 0.36 (0.91%)
NBP 60.29 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
OGDC 199.66 Increased By ▲ 4.72 (2.42%)
PAEL 26.65 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.15%)
PIBTL 7.66 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (2.41%)
PPL 157.92 Increased By ▲ 2.15 (1.38%)
PRL 26.73 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.19%)
PTC 18.46 Increased By ▲ 0.16 (0.87%)
SEARL 82.44 Decreased By ▼ -0.58 (-0.7%)
TELE 8.31 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.97%)
TOMCL 34.51 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.12%)
TPLP 9.06 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (2.84%)
TREET 17.47 Increased By ▲ 0.77 (4.61%)
TRG 61.32 Decreased By ▼ -1.13 (-1.81%)
UNITY 27.43 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.04%)
WTL 1.38 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (7.81%)
BR100 10,407 Increased By 220 (2.16%)
BR30 31,713 Increased By 377.1 (1.2%)
KSE100 97,328 Increased By 1781.9 (1.86%)
KSE30 30,192 Increased By 614.4 (2.08%)

TOKYO: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Japan on Thursday for the final stop on her Asian tour, following a visit to Taiwan that incensed China.

AFP reporters saw the politician disembark from her plane at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, before greeting the US ambassador and other officials with hugs and handshakes.

Beijing has launched large-scale military drills in the waters around Taiwan after Pelosi this week became the highest-profile elected US official to set foot on the self-ruled island in 25 years.

The 82-year-old politician defied a series of stern threats from China to meet Taiwanese leaders on Wednesday, saying her trip made it “unequivocally clear” that the United States would not abandon a democratic ally.

It is Pelosi’s first trip to Japan since 2015, and she arrived from South Korea where her schedule included a visit to the border with nuclear-armed North Korea.

She will meet Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for breakfast on Friday, Japan’s foreign ministry said, to discuss the two countries’ alliance and issues of shared interest.

Pelosi is also scheduled to discuss international affairs with Japan’s House of Representatives speaker Hiroyuki Hosoda.

Japan, a key US ally, has lodged a diplomatic protest with China over its massive military exercises encircling Taiwan, which began on Thursday.

Just before Pelosi’s arrival, Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi said five ballistic missiles fired by China were believed to have landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Parts of Japan’s southernmost island region Okinawa are close to Taiwan, as are islets at the centre of a long-running dispute between Tokyo and Beijing.

US President Joe Biden also angered Beijing on a visit to Japan in May, when he said US forces would defend Taiwan militarily if China attempted to take control of the island by force — prompting Beijing to warn that the US was “playing with fire”.

Biden and his team insisted at the time that their decades-old approach to Taiwan remained in place, however.

This includes arming the democratic island for its own defence while acknowledging China’s legal sovereignty, and expressing “strategic ambiguity” on whether American troops would ever intervene if China invaded the territory.

Comments

Comments are closed.