Transcript of Pelosi Opening Remarks at Bilateral Meeting with Vice President of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan Tsai Chi-chang

Taipei, Taiwan – Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional delegation joined Vice President of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan Tsai Chi-chang and members of the Legislative Yuan for a bilateral meeting. Below are the Speaker's opening remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you very much, Vice President Tsai, for your very warm words of welcome, for your message from the President – who I'm sorry that he has COVID. Please send him our best regards. We will be talking with him virtually later. But thank you for initiating this meeting. And thank you for your warm, warm welcome.

It's an honor to join you, Mr. Vice President, as well as your distinguished Members of your Leadership here. Thank you so much for your presence and your kind welcome. I accept all the kind words that you said about me on behalf of the Congress of the United States, because all of that was done in a very strong, bipartisan way in support of Taiwan. When you say that I'm a good friend of Taiwan, I take that as a great compliment – but I receive it on behalf of my colleagues. You acknowledged some, you mentioned them at the beginning, but I'm very proud of the distinguished party that has come with us.

On our visits, on Congressional delegations, we have three purposes. One is security: security for our people, global security. Two is economics: to spread as much prosperity as possible. And three is governance.

Mr. Vice President, so many of the legislation and other initiatives that you mentioned were possible because of my Members of this delegation. The Chairman of the Foreign Relations – Foreign Affairs Committee in the House, Gregory Meeks, has been an ardent leader in terms of these human rights initiatives across the world, but in particular, the ones that you mentioned. So again, we – our purpose, or the three purposes I said – but in doing so, we want to increase interparliamentary cooperation and dialogue.

And we do so at a time when our President has put forth an Asian Pacific initiative, which we support. And we want to be specific in terms of how we work with Taiwan in that regard.

And acknowledging Chairman Meeks' leadership in regard to so many of the initiatives you mentioned. I'm sure we'll have some discussion about that, and you'll hear directly from him.

We come in friendship to Taiwan. We come in peace for the region, and our Vice Chair – our Chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee, Mr. Takano, representing our veterans, understanding the value of peace and the avoidance of conflict. I'm sure that he will speak to us about that, but I want to salute him for his protection of our veterans – not just our veterans, but the veterans of all countries engaged in war.

We talked about the economy. Thank you for bringing up the CHIPS bill. All of these Members were instrumental in passing that important legislation, which we think offers great – greater opportunity for U.S.-Taiwan economic cooperation. Here with us in that regard is the Vice Chair of the Ways and Means Committee – was very instrumental in the passage of that. And she can share some thoughts about – that perhaps she was with Microsoft, she is private-sector-oriented and visited Taiwan on many occasions, which I'm sure she'll share with us. Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, Vice Chair of the Ways and Means Committee.

Where security and economy come together: our distinguished Member from Illinois, Mr. Krishnamoorthi, is a Member of the Intelligence Committee. And he saw the connection between CHIPS and national security, as well as other aspects of our cooperation, security-wise. We'll hear from Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, Mr. Krishnamoorthi.

In terms of all of the connection of this, whether it's security or foreign affairs and the rest and economy, Mr. – Congressman Andy Kim of New Jersey is a Member of the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee and other committees of jurisdiction in this regard. He also have is a former member of the State Department. He's a diplomat, and so he's teaching us to speak more diplomatically.

In terms of – as you see, our delegation has what we call ‘heft.' They, they have a view of economy and security and governance. They have knowledge of the issues, they think in a strategic way about how to work together. They came here – we all did – to listen, to learn from you as to how we can go forward together.

And in terms of governance: we commend Taiwan for being one of the freest societies in the world, for your success in addressing the COVID issue, which is a health issue, a security issue an economic issue and a governance issue. We congratulate you for that. And as we continue to work together, we want you to know how proud we are of Sandra [Oudkirk] – she told me just to address her as Sandra, our Director. She has our confidence, and we're very proud of her leadership.

So now we look forward to our conversation about how we can work together, learning from you and sharing some thoughts ourselves on how to protect the planet from the climate crisis. How to accelerate and learn from you – how you address the COVID crisis, how we advance respect for all of the people in our countries as we go forward. And again, we come in friendship. We thank you for your leadership. We want the world to recognize that.

And with that, again, I thank you, Vice President Tsai, for your hospitality, for your kind words. I just go back to Tiananmen Square for a moment. That was bipartisan. It was over 30 years ago. It was bipartisan when we were on Tiananmen Square, and we were there specifically making the statement on human rights. But our visit was about human rights, was about unfair trade practices, and it was about security issues of technology, dangerous technologies being transferred to rogue countries to countries of concern. So our – over the years, it's always been about security, economy and governance.

So we look forward to our conversation, and I think we're right on time.