Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong 'highlighted the importance of stable U.S.-China relations for regional peace and security' during talks with Pelosi, the city-state's foreign ministry said.

Pelosi kicked off her Asian tour in Singapore on Monday but her purported visit to Taiwan has sparked jitters in the region. government, would be the highest-ranking elected American official to visit Taiwan since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997. Pelosi, head of one of three branches of the U.S. maintains informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan even as it recognizes Beijing as the government of China.īeijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island's decades-old de facto independence permanent, a step U.S. Taiwan and China split in 1949 after the Communists won a civil war on the mainland. 'We are looking for them, in the event she decides to visit, to act responsibly and not to engage in any escalation going forward.' 'If the speaker does decide to visit, and China tries to create some kind of a crisis or otherwise escalate tensions, that would be entirely on Beijing,' he told reporters at U.N. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also urged China to 'act responsibly' in the event that Pelosi proceeds with the visit. policy into some sort of crisis or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait,' Kirby said. 'Put simply, there is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with long-standing U.S.

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