On 3 August 2022, the US-China ties reach a new low when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi touched down in Taiwan. Pelosi is now the highest US official who visited the island in 25 years, despite warnings from other top Washington officials, but the situation is very different from what it was then.
As a result of the US House speaker’s visit to Taiwan, China and the US have cut off communication on a number of important matters, including discussions of the climate crisis and military exchanges. The announcement of the countermeasures coincided with Beijing’s military exercises around Taiwan’s island. China had previously levied restrictions against Pelosi and her immediate family. Pelosi’s visit was denounced by Beijing as “vicious and confrontational measures.”
In the Taiwan Strait, tensions are at an all-time high. Numerous ships had to redirect their routes due to the military exercises, which had an impact on the economies of the region and the world. Over the previous week, commercial ships have traversed the maritime zones on average 240 times per day, according to statistics from Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
Pelosi, who is second in line for the presidency, rejected a number of China’s increasingly severe warnings, which heightened tensions. Xi Jinping, the president of China, warned Joe Biden last week over the phone that “anyone plays with fire will get burned.”
Although US President Biden agreed that the US military thought it was “not a smart idea right now,” he also knew better than to try to interfere with Pelosi’s plans because she has long followed her own path. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s travel to Taiwan was criticized as “utterly reckless” by a prominent New York Times columnist. After Pelosi left Taiwan, a number of countries including Russia, UAE, Iran, South Africa, Arab League, ASEAN and United Nations voiced support for one-China, affirming Beijing’s authority.
It is important to acknowledge the importance of this choice. It doesn’t matter all that much to the US. Congressmen from various Western nations, including the US, routinely visit Taiwan. Because the legislative part of government is distinct from the administration, which is in charge of overseeing foreign policy, it is also considered as distinct from official US government policy. Pelosi noted this in a tweet after landing on Taiwan. “Our visit is one of several Congressional delegations to Taiwan – and it in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, US-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances.”
But China does not concur with such notions. And the reason for it is that things have changed significantly since Newt Gingrich, the then-house speaker, visited Taipei 25 years ago. The main reason for this is that the ruling Kuo Min Tang (KMT) party remained adhered to the “One China” position that was set by the National Unification Council of the Republic of China (official title for what Westerners refer to as Taiwan) in 1992.
A few years after the Second World War, a civil war that had been raging in China throughout the 1930s came to a head, and Chairman Mao Tse Tung’s Communists seized over mainland China. In 1949, the nationalists led by the then-Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan and established a republic there under the protection of its Western friends, calling it the Republic of China. Since then, Taiwan has shared hostilities with mainland China.
At the start of the 1980s, hostilities significantly decreased. For Taiwan, China proposed the “one country, two systems” approach, giving it more autonomy should Taiwan choose to reunite with the mainland. The nationalist Kuo Min Tang (KMT) government lifted numerous trade and investment regulations even though Taiwan rejected the offer. In 1991, it also declared the conflict with the mainland to be over. As Beijing refused to recognize Taipei’s government as legitimate, relations between China and Taiwan were only maintained indirectly.
Beijing was concerned by Chen Shui-bian’s ascent to the presidency of Taiwan in 2000. Chen Shui-bian was a prominent member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a party that supported independence. The primary distinction between DPP and KMT is that, despite disagreements with Communist doctrine, KMT favors ultimate reunification with the mainland while DPP advocates for legal independence. After gaining office, Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT tried to strengthen ties with China through commercial accords. He was succeeded by Ma in 2008. When current leader Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP took office after an eight-year hiatus, things began to deteriorate once more.
The United States ‘acknowledged’ but not ‘accepted’ a position of China in 1978 stating that there is only one China. The wording made it apparent that the US may play with China whenever it saw fit. China has long believed that a peaceful reunion is feasible, and this has helped to prevent confrontation in the region, despite the unofficial links between Taiwan and the United States. The uneasy status quo was contested during the tenure of the Trump administration, and the current Biden government has maintained the trend. Democrats subtly dropped the slogan “One China” from their platform during the summer of 2020, and Biden hosted a Taiwanese envoy at the presidential inauguration in January 2021, making him the first US president to do so. In April 2021, the US started to relax all the restrictions that prevented any formal contacts between the US and Taiwan.
Therefore, Pelosi’s visit is perceived as an infringement on China’s national sovereignty, whereas Gingrich’s visit was not seen as an endorsement of separatist forces because the ruling KMT saw itself as the de facto rulers of China. Additionally, China interprets the administration’s actions as tacit endorsement of this violation of its sovereignty. Pelosi traveled to Taipei aboard a jet that belonged to the US government, indicating that Washington and Taipei have official ties. As part of its commitment to “One China,” the US has promised to solely keep informal connections with Taiwan.
The relationship between Beijing and Washington will surely reach a new low as a result of Pelosi’s travel to Taiwan. How things go forward from here is the question at hand. Already, things are about to get heated. Due to rumors of Pelosi’s visit, flights in the nearby Chinese province of Fujian were canceled, a DDoS attack from abroad targeted Taiwan’s presidential office, and a bomb threat was even received to Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport. Since then, China has announced a significant military exercise from August 4–7 that virtually rings Taiwan’s whole island and enters Taiwan’s territorial waters. The Chinese drills have effectively besieged the Taiwan islands.
Whatever claims come from Western media about the visit, China sees the visit as part of a carefully lined up plan, and the timing of the visit is intriguing, when Russia, a key strategic ally of China is engaged in a military conflict in Europe.
As Chinese observers have noted, this most recent action could certainly speed the eventual reunification. There are internal political dynamics that support this as well, with President Xi Jinping seeking to solidify his legacy as one of China’s legendary leaders and popular opinion on the mainland strongly in favor of bringing Taiwan back into Beijing’s orbit. On the western front, China has ample time at its disposal to react. With the stroke of a pen, Chinese policymakers might severely impact the US economy, increase inflation, and force Biden’s Democrats out of power in this year’s midterm elections, which would also result in Nancy Pelosi losing her position as speaker.
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is a new chapter to the game of great power competition. This visit has complicated the security of one of the busiest trade routes in the world. Regional countries of South and Southeast Asian countries are dependent heavily on Chinese trade and investments. Though Southeast Asian countries are relatively stable, things are getting volatile in South Asia. Sri Lanka and Pakistan has already plunged in to crisis, rising economy like Bangladesh is feeling the heat with a growing inflation, fuel price hike and fast falling foreign currency reserves. The US will look to exert pressure to these countries, who are traditional Chinese partners. If Bangladesh is to address the approaching geopolitical crisis, it must tread carefully down the balanced road of economic diplomacy.