Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, traveled to Taiwan – despite dozens of warnings and threats from China. Your visit is also evidence of unclear US policy towards the People’s Republic.
Now she has. The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who is formally the third-highest-ranking political officer in the United States, landed in Taiwan yesterday afternoon.
It is the highest-ranking visit from the USA in 25 years to the island, which is no larger than Switzerland and yet could become the nucleus of a new international crisis. With her visit to Taipei, the 82-year-old democrat is defying her own president and the warnings of dozens of experts in international diplomacy.
China’s warnings were also clear. President Xi Jinping said after a phone call with US President Joe Biden last week: “Those who play with fire will perish.”
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Pelosi doesn’t just play with fire, she relishes setting fire to fire. After landing, she had a prepared text published in the Washington Post.
“In the face of increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party, our delegation’s visit should be taken as an unequivocal declaration that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner,” she wrote. when it defends itself and its freedom.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry responded promptly: Pelosi’s visit has “serious implications for the political basis of China-US relations and constitutes a serious violation of China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
As the US government plane with Pelosi on board approached Taiwan, a total of 21 fighter jets took off and crossed the strait, according to Chinese state media. No details have been released about their duties.
There was no collision. But the world held its breath. Beijing shouldn’t stop there with a few warning flights and a verbal protest note. More than almost any other regime, the regime values saving face and non-interference in internal affairs.
And Taiwan is an internal matter for Beijing. Pelosi’s stopover is rated as the maximum affront. “The Chinese have issued very clear warnings on a number of occasions. I expect that they will now do something that has never been done before,” says Asia expert Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund.
Memories of 1996 are awakened. At that time, Beijing had fired four medium-range missiles over the island after democratic elections in Taiwan. The KP had declared the tests as “target practice”.
The result: 400 square kilometers of ocean were closed to international shipping and a no-fly zone was imposed. 350 passenger flights had to be diverted. A little later, the largest military maneuvers in the history of the People’s Republic began.
Then-Defense Minister Chi Haotian recalled that Taiwan was the “only part of China” that still had to be “liberated.” This view has not changed 25 years later. For China’s state leadership, Taiwan is not just a breakaway province and uncomfortable democracy on its own doorstep, but the heartland of its identity politics.
The CP’s “one China maxim” has its core in Taiwan’s affiliation with China, which has been part of the state raison d’être since the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 by the communist revolutionary Mao Zedong.
With the diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China by the USA in 1972, Taiwan gradually lost support in the West. Today, only 14 countries in the world have recognized the island as a state.
With her landing in Taipei, Pelosi is now bringing the smoldering conflict back onto the international stage with force. Only: does the Taiwan question justify a military conflict between the world powers China and the USA?
US President Joe Biden had warned Pelosi. But the ailing president apparently did not have the authority to dissuade his fellow party member from her plan.
The visit is thus also evidence of an unclear US policy towards China. On the one hand, the giant empire in the Far East is the most important economic partner and the ties with the western world are deeper than ever.
On the other hand, Joe Biden had repeatedly chosen Taiwan to demonstrate foreign policy strength. In the spring, the President surprised by saying that he would also support Taiwan militarily.
In the South Pacific, the world powers are now facing each other, fully armed. A long-term planned US Navy-led multinational military exercise in the Pacific (RIMPAC 22) is currently underway. Germany is also one of the 26 participating nations.
The two US aircraft carriers USS Ronald Reagan and USS Tripoli cruise in the Pacific. The US protects Taiwan not only because it values the country as a democracy, but also because Taiwan has become one of the most important suppliers to the globalized, technology-driven world economy.
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The Taiwanese company TSMC is the world market leader in microchips for industry. The chief analyst at the industry newspaper Digitimes, Tony Huang, rates the company’s technological lead over the competition as unassailable. “TSMC has a 55 percent market share in contract manufacturing, three times larger than number two, Samsung.”
A military conflict in Taiwan would therefore have massive effects on global chip production and the IT industry. After the shock waves caused by the Ukraine war, the global economy would finally slide into recession.
On Monday I analyzed for you why such a scenario should be prevented at all costs and why the West should not compare support for Taiwan with support for Ukraine.
Michael Bröcker is editor-in-chief of Media Pioneer. The free morning briefing can be found here: www.gaborsteingart.com
