Taiwan defiant, China fumes
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crossed the median line separating the island from China.
Pelosi arrived with a congressional delegation on her unannounced but closely watched visit late on Tuesday, defying China’s repeated warnings, in a trip that she said demonstrated unwavering US commitment to Taiwan’s democracy.
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence - a red line for China.
A long-time China critic, especially on human rights, Pelosi met with a former Tiananmen activist, a Hong Kong bookseller who had been detained by China and a Taiwanese activist recently released by China.
Later, arriving in Seoul, South Korea, Pelosi said Beijing cannot prevent world leaders from travelling to Taiwan.
The last US House speaker to go to Taiwan was Newt Gingrich in 1997. But Pelosi’s visit comes amid sharply deteriorating Sino-US relations, and during the past quarter century China has emerged as a far more powerful economic, military and geopolitical force.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring it under its control. The United States has warned China against using the visit as a pretext for military action against Taiwan.
In retaliation, China’s customs department announced a suspension of imports of citrus fruits and certain fish - chilled white striped hairtail and frozen horse mackerel - from Taiwan, while its commerce ministry banned export of natural sand to Taiwan.
Fury on the mainland over Pelosi’s defiance of Beijing was evident all over Chinese social media, with one blogger railing: “this old she-devil, she actually dares to come!” Pelosi is 82.
Before Pelosi’s arrival, Chinese warplanes buzzed the line dividing the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese military said it was on high alert and would launch “targeted military operations” in response to Pelosi’s visit.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said after Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan that the United States “is not going to be intimidated” by China’s threats or bellicose rhetoric and that there is no reason her visit should precipitate a crisis or conflict.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the potential for Pelosi’s visit with counterpart Wang Yi during a G20 meeting in Bali last month, and said any such trip would be entirely Pelosi’s decision and independent of the US government, a senior US official said yesterday.
The United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide it with the means to defend itself. China views visits by US officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the island. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people can decide the island’s future.
Despite all its aggressive posturing, few believe Beijing wants an active military conflict against the United States and its allies over Taiwan -- just yet.
“The last thing (Chinese President) Xi Jinping wants is an accidental war ignited,” Titus Chen, an associate professor of political science at the National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan, said.
Multiple scholars noted that Beijing’s military capabilities still lag behind Washington’s, and told AFP that recent military drills, while clearly intended to be intimidating, fell short of targeting areas immediately adjacent to the Taiwanese coast.
According to analysts who talked with AFP, Xi Jinping is anxious to project strength against the United States -- its greatest military and economic rival -- ahead of a key political meeting expected to secure him an unprecedented third term.
Drumming up nationalist sentiment also serves to distract from China’s slowing economy and growing public impatience with Beijing’s harsh zero-Covid restrictions that have dampened the mood in what would have been a jubilant year for Xi.
However, the risk of escalation can’t be ruled out during military drills.
Singapore-based security scholar Collin Koh said the Pelosi visit had trapped China between having to show a resolute and sweeping response while avoiding a full-blown conflict.
“Even if they want to avoid that outcome, there are still significant possibilities for an accidental escalation,” said Koh, of the of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Song Zhongping, a Hong Kong-based military commentator, said it appeared the People’s Liberation Army wanted to practise blockading the island if it had to in a later war.
“The goal of these exercises, to put it bluntly, is to prepare for the military fight with Taiwan.”