JOIN USPelosi’s Taiwan visit ill-timed, unhelpful
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has proved to be a highly provocative one, ratcheting up cross-Taiwan Strait tensions and further fraying the US-China relationship.
The timing of the visit could prove particularly problematic for the global economy and security, given the pandemic and war-induced worldwide economic gloom, supply chain disruptions, rising inflation, and food scarcity. Should a crisis erupt over Taiwan now, it would worsen all of these problems, damage global trade, and weaken America’s position among its Asian allies.
The visit was ostensibly, as Pelosi put it, to send out “an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan…” in the face of China’s “accelerating aggression”. Did it help? In response to what was a symbolic visit, China began to take substantive action hours after it. Beijing banned imports of thousands of food items from Taiwan, sent in a 27-fighter force into Taiwan’s air defence zone, and is set to launch on Thursday a series of military operations that would amount to a virtual naval blockade of Taiwan.
To be sure, China has been increasingly aggressive on Taiwan over the last few years, sending its military ships and aircraft hundreds of times close to, and sometimes into, Taiwan’s waters and airspace. America had to make it clear to Beijing that it is still committed to defending Taiwan against a military invasion by China. But such messaging is best achieved not through an ill-timed symbolic visit but by substantive support to Taiwan, such as through the stepped-up arms sales to Taipei that the Biden administration has quietly undertaken. The 82-year-old Pelosi’s visit may have helped to burnish her personal legacy as a long-time champion against authoritarian China, but it has already begun to prove unhelpful in containing Chinese belligerence.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, cannot help but react aggressively to the Pelosi visit because he cannot afford to be seen as weak in the run up to the Communist Party congress in November, where he will seek another term, at the least, in office. China may not be in a position to confront the US militarily, nor even a Taiwan that’s armed to the teeth to resist an invasion, but there is every chance that egos and miscalculations could take the two sides up the escalatory ladder of a conflict neither side wants.
This is a scenario that has worried the US administration and military ever since Russia invaded Ukraine – of a Chinese military bid on Taiwan at a time when the US is distracted in Europe. Not even the Superpower has the wherewithal today to fight and win against powerful enemies in two distant theatres.