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Pelosi is playing with fire
All fires start with a spark, and it might still not be too late for Biden to put out the one that the US has lit in our neighborhood by allowing Pelosi's Taiwan visit.
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United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (fourth right) appears with members of her delegation in a handout photograph taken upon their arrival at Taipei Songshan Airport and released by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Aug. 2, 2022. (AFP/MOFA)
T
he visit of United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan is clearly a deliberate act of provocation, coming barely a week after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s stern warning, issued during his virtual summit with President Joe Biden.
Xi’s exact words were "Those who play with fire will perish by it”, an obvious reference to Pelosi’s planned visit.
Although the White House has stressed that the visit does not change the US’ “One China policy” recognizing that Taiwan is a part of China and not an independent state, Biden could have stopped Pelosi from going to Taiwan and avoided Beijing’s wrath. The fact that he didn’t shows either poor leadership on his part, or worse, that the two Democrat politicians had coordinated the move. If the latter, it would make Biden a co-conspirator, if not an accomplice, of the potentially conflagratory visit.
Unsurprisingly, China responded swiftly by launching a massive deployment of warships and fighters in Taiwanese waters and airspace in a show of its military might – for now.
Let’s hope it stays that way, and that China proves to be the better of the two superpowers by showing greater restraint. Beijing should respond to Washington’s brinkmanship with statesmanship.
What other motivation might be behind Pelosi’s visit is not clear, other than to ruffle Beijing’s feathers. This is the first visit to Taiwan in 25 years by a US House speaker, and being second in line to the presidency after the Vice President, Pelosi is so high in the US leadership that she couldn’t have made the visit without Biden’s approval.
This seems to be consistent with the statement Biden made in Japan in May, when he said the US “will respond militarily” if China attacked Taiwan, in a departure from the US’ long-held strategic ambiguity over Taiwan. The State Department has since walked back on Biden’s statement, assuring Beijing that US policy remained unchanged.
Since Pelosi’s visit, we’re not so sure anymore.
The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the basis of Washington’s relationship with Taipei, includes providing weapons to Taiwan for self-defense. The act does not require the US to defend Taiwan if China attacks, but it doesn’t rule it out, either. And no US president before Biden has ever gone so far as to expressly mention military intervention in Taiwan.
The US is weakening as a superpower, even though it is still the more militarily superior between the two. China is a rising economic and military power, and it has been flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. So, is Pelosi’s visit intended to call Xi’s bluff and test China’s military strength, or is she really testing the US’ power?
Whatever the reason for her visit, it is likely that neither Pelosi, the US nor its people is the primary target of Xi’s warning about the consequences of playing with fire.
The Taiwanese people may have lived under constant military threat, but that threat is now becoming real. Countries in East Asia all the way down to the southeast, including Indonesia, will inevitably bear the brunt if the tension escalates into a full-scale conflict. Meanwhile, Pelosi and her fellow Americans will watch the war far across the Pacific, from the comfort of their living rooms.
Both China and the US need to back off and take a breather. But the onus is clearly on Biden to extinguish the spark Pelosi has lit, before it bursts into flame.
