US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has undertaken to commit her country’s “crucial” solidarity with Taiwan, in a meeting with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen. At a press conference in Taipei on Wednesday, 3 August 2022, Pelosi raised questions about Beijing’s full-throated excoriation of the US leader’s visit to Taiwan, a self-governed democracy that autocratic China avers is part of its sovereign territory.
Pelosi stated: “It’s really important for the message to be clear… [the US] is committed to the security of Taiwan … but it’s about our shared values of democracy and freedom and how Taiwan has been an example to the world … Whether there are insecurities of the president of China relating to his own political situation I don’t know.”
The US has dared China with Pelosi’s visit to breakaway Taiwan, prompting much Chinese ire; and China has retaliated with planned missile tests and military “operations” around the island.
Pelosi waxed eloquent about the US’ endearing relationship with the island nation. “Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon Taiwan, and we are proud of our enduring friendship,” Pelosi said. Now more than ever, US solidarity with Taiwan was “crucial”, she emphasised.
Pelosi said, 43 years ago, the US made a “bedrock promise to always stand with Taiwan”. “On this strong foundation we have built a thriving partnership,” she added. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan becomes significant as she is the second in line to the US presidency. Pelosi included Taiwan on her itinerary after much media speculation and hushed up plans for a tryst, amid China’s blunt expression of consternation over a potential visit. Pelosi is on a whirlwind tour of Asia, which includes stops at Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. She is the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. Republican Newt Gingrich visited the island in 1997 when he was House speaker.
Tsai, in turn, said Taiwan “will not back down” in the face of heightened military threats, and would “do whatever it takes to maintain Taiwan’s peace and stability”.
She said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had made security over the Taiwan Strait a focus of the world’s attention.
Before Pelosi’s visit, China inveighed that the People’s Liberation Army “will never sit idly by” and watch Pelosi visit Taiwan despite repeated warnings to avoid the island.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, during his regular press conference on Monday, 1 August 2022, said “We have been stressing that such a visit would lead to serious consequences.
“Those who play with fire will perish by it. We believe that the US side is fully aware of China’s strong and clear message.
“A visit … would constitute a gross interference in China’s internal affairs, seriously undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, wantonly trample on the One-China principle, greatly threaten peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, severely undermine China-US relations and lead to a very serious situation and grave consequences,” he added.
After Pelosi landed in Taiwan, a livid China lodged a diplomatic protest with the US saying that her visit is a “serious violation of the One-China principle” and accused Washington of playing the “Taiwan card” to contain Beijing.
“The Taiwan question is purely an internal affair of China, and no other country is entitled to act as a judge on the Taiwan question,” the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement minutes after Pelosi landed in Taipei.
“China strongly urges the United States to stop playing the ‘Taiwan card’ and using Taiwan to contain China. It should stop meddling in Taiwan and interfering in China’s internal affairs,” the ministry decried.
The Chinese legislature — the National People’s Congress – also issued strong-worded statements denigrating Pelosi’s visit.
Her visit has a “severe impact on the political foundation of China-US relations, and seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for ‘Taiwan independence’,” the statement said.
“China firmly opposes and sternly condemns this, and has made serious demarche and strong protest to the United States,” it said.
China has been repeatedly conducting military exercises around Taiwan seeking to bludgeon the latter into accepting Chinese sovereignty. Taiwan’s government says only the island’s 23 million people can decide their future, and, while it wants peace, will defend itself if attacked.
The White House on Monday, 1 August 2022, exhorted China against overreacting to the trip by Pelosi to Taiwan, saying she would have every right to visit the self-ruled island despite Beijing viewing it as a highly provocative challenge.
“China need not turn any visit by Ms Pelosi into a “crisis,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, even as he warned that Beijing may be “positioning” itself for a show of military strength around the island.
Many in the US have been concerned about Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, not just the military leaders. Over the past several weeks, officials including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. John C. Aquilino, NSC Asia head Kurt Campbell and others have briefed Pelosi or her staff about the intelligence assessments of the risks and the military planning that would be necessary if she goes.
For US President Joe Biden, it would have been judicious to have eschewed what may be perceived as an assertive but nominal visit to avoid putting Taiwan’s fragile independence at risk if China’s threats are to be taken seriously.
As it is, Taiwan is relentlessly menaced by China that has sworn to merge it with the mainland, by force if necessary. In June 2022, Taiwan said that 29 Chinese warplanes invaded its air defence zone, the third-largest invasion this year.
According to Taipei, 29 Chinese aircraft, including 17 fighter jets and six bombers, flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). In 2021, Taiwan logged 969 incursions into its ADIZ by Chinese jets, more than double the 380 sorties conducted in 2020. So far this year, the figure has surpassed 500.
According to a Taiwanese Ministry of Defense (MND) report, published on 5 June 2022, the Chinese military will be capable of fighting Taiwan and its allies together by 2027.
China has been increasingly and vehemently vociferous about validating the One-China policy that proclaims Taiwan as part of China.
The US has said that it abides by the One-China policy and does not subscribe to independence for Taiwan, but the US is required to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself under the US Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).
The 1979 TRA states that the US will maintain the capacity to defend Taiwan but is not forthcoming on whether or not the US would actually militarily intervene if China attacked – ultimately this remains a US presidential decision. Over the past decade, the US has announced more than USD 20 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.
Last month (July 2022), the US State Department approved selling military equipment worth USD 108 million to Taiwan. This will be the fifth such sale to Taiwan since Joe Biden became president in January 2021.
China strongly denounces US weapons sales to Taiwan, and, considering the latest US commission, verbally pressured the US to abrogate the deal.
Now the visit by Pelosi has inflamed an already tense situation across the Taiwan Strait. Chinese President Xi Jinping is obsessed with the idea of merging Taiwan with the mainland. He has made it his prime objective while in power. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan severely undermines what Xi stands for and his position as leader of the world’s most populous nation. This is very irksome to Xi, more so because he will be seeking a third five-year term in power when the Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China meets in the next few months. Xi, 68, will be completing 10 years in power this year. All his predecessors have retired after two terms.
While the US is making its point about upholding Taiwan’s democracy and freedom, it will be wait-and-watch over the coming days for what Xi does next…will there be mere empty threats or will there be a full-scale confrontation?
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