FOREIGN
POLICY
Pelosi to leave for Asia amid Chinese threats
over Taiwan stop
Visit to the island still possible as U.S. military
preparations get underway.
Pelosi ‘very excited’ for possible upcoming Asia trip
By ANDREW
DESIDERIO and LARA SELIGMAN
07/29/2022
02:49 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/29/pelosi-taiwan-china-00048749
Speaker
Nancy Pelosi is set to leave this weekend on a trip that includes Singapore,
Japan and South Korea — and possibly Taiwan — even as a Chinese state media
commentator suggested Friday that Beijing could shoot down any U.S. military
plane she takes to Taipei.
Pelosi has
declined to confirm specifics of her expected swing through Asia, citing
security risks. But she is scheduled to lead a small delegation of lawmakers,
including House Foreign Affairs Chair Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), to Pacific
countries beginning this weekend, according to multiple people familiar with
the matter.
Officially,
a stop in Taiwan is still up in the air. But the Pentagon is moving ahead with
preparations anyway, according to three people familiar with her travel plans.
If the trip goes forward as planned, Pelosi will fly on a U.S. military
aircraft to Taipei, POLITICO previously reported.
“We want
Congress to be a part of” the Biden administration’s strategy in the
Indo-Pacific, Pelosi told reporters on Friday. “I’m very excited, should we go
to the countries that you’ll be hearing about along the way, about the
conversations we’ll have. … We have global responsibilities.”
Xi Jinping
smiles and waves to military officers and troops.
In this
photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with
military officers and troops stationed in northwestern China's Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region, Friday, July 15, 2022. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, on a visit
to the Xinjiang region where his government is widely accused of oppressing
predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities, showed no signs of backing off policies
that have come under harsh criticism from the U.S. and many European countries.
(Li Gang/Xinhua via AP) | Li Gang/Xinhua via AP
U.S.
defense officials are increasingly concerned that China would see a
congressional delegation to Taiwan, escorted by military aircraft, as an
invasion. That rhetoric escalated Friday when Hu Xijin, a commentator with the
Chinese-state-owned Global Times, threatened that China’s military could down
the speaker’s plane.
“If US
fighter jets escort Pelosi’s plane into Taiwan, it is invasion,” Hu wrote on
Twitter. “The [Chinese military] has the right to forcibly dispel Pelosi’s
plane and the US fighter jets, including firing warning shots and making
tactical movement of obstruction. If ineffective, then shoot them down.”
Pelosi last
week referenced the possibility of her plane getting shot down, after President
Joe Biden told reporters that the U.S. military believes her potential visit to
the self-governing island is “not a good idea.” Indeed, the Biden
administration has conveyed the risks to Pelosi in private in recent weeks,
including a plea to postpone her trip to later this year.
However,
earlier on Friday White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the
U.S. has seen “no physical, tangible indications of anything untoward with
respect to Taiwan.”
The U.S.
military is accustomed to Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait, including
increased naval activity and air intercepts, one of the people familiar with
the matter said. U.S. fighter jets flying in the region are already permitted
to carry the maximum amount of ordnance, according to two of the people.
Defense
officials are more concerned that Beijing will conduct missile testing in the
waters surrounding Taiwan as an intimidation tactic, as it did during the 1996
Taiwan Strait Crisis.
The rising
tensions over Pelosi’s travel come one day after Biden and Chinese President Xi
Jinping spoke by phone about an array of issues, including Taiwan. According to
Chinese state media, Xi warned Biden that the U.S. must abide by its “One
China” policy, adding: “Those who play with fire will eventually get burned.”
Asked about
Xi’s threat on Friday, Pelosi smiled and laughed, but declined to respond.
Pelosi’s
travel plans, like those of most lawmakers, are typically kept under wraps
until after leaving a particular country. Yet the public jostling over this
particular trip has put immense pressure on the speaker to follow through with
a stop in Taiwan, despite China’s increasingly belligerent threats and the
Biden administration’s concerns.
Lawmakers
are worried that if Pelosi decides not to fly to Taiwan, Beijing would benefit
from its tough talk. Meeks, who declined on Friday to discuss a possible trip,
seemed to echo those concerns.
“We can’t
be bullied by anyone,” Meeks said. “I don’t pay any attention to that.”
“Xi and
China — they better start worrying about their own human rights violations,
what they’re doing with the Uyghurs, and trying to figure out how they can play
on the world stage with everybody on the same stage,” added Meeks, referencing
China’s genocide of Uyghur Muslims.
Pelosi has
long enflamed the Chinese government given her progressive track record on
human rights issues. Since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Pelosi has
actively boosted dissidents in Hong Kong and elsewhere who have been subjected
to China’s repression. In 1991, the speaker was chased out of Tiananmen Square
for displaying a banner that paid tribute to the pro-democracy protesters who
were killed there two years earlier.
Beijing
views Taiwan as part of China, and views the U.S. posture toward Taiwan as
tacit support for the island’s independence. Biden himself has, at least three
times, vowed to defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese invasion,
before the White House walked those statements back.
The U.S.
policy toward Taiwan has long been governed by the Taiwan Relations Act and the
doctrine of “strategic ambiguity” — the notion that the U.S. would remain
purposely noncommittal about defending Taiwan.
Some
members of Congress, though, have pushed to revise that doctrine to “strategic
clarity,” especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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