The Biden administration doesn’t appear to be supporting Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan
The media is wondering whether Washington has blinked in its latest confrontation with Beijing. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to the Indo-Pacific region reportedly included Taiwan, leading to sharp reactions from China which regards Taiwan as its territory. On Sunday, however, it appeared that she may not visit the island nation. Her office issued a statement that the Congressional delegation she is leading would visit Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. Importantly, Taiwan did not appear in the list of countries. Being third in the line of succession to the US Presidency because of the office she holds, her visit to Taiwan, if it happens, would be a leg up for the nation which yearns for recognition from the world. Most countries, including the US and India, officially regard Taiwan as a part of China, even as they maintain relations with it as if it were a sovereign entity. It needs to be mentioned here that China is extremely sensitive to any statement or event that hints at Taiwan’s status as an independent nation. By the way, Pelosi won’t be the first sitting US House speaker to visit Taiwan; Newt Gingrich, a Republican, did that in 1997. He went to Taipei days after he visited Beijing and Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, China’s Foreign Ministry slammed Gingrich, but the response didn’t go beyond condemnation.
However, when then-Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui visited the United States in 1995, the dragon spat fire—quite literally. China fired missiles that fell into the waters around the island nation. It was only after the US flexed its muscles, moving a couple of aircraft carrier battle groups into the area, that the crisis subsided. That was then; China was not as strong at that time as it is now; neither had it become a threat to global peace as it is today. President Xi Jinping has managed to blend two bellicose ideologies, nationalism and communism, into a deadly mix. US President Donald Trump was the first global leader to recognise that and act accordingly. This is the reason that in recent years, Taiwan has been visited by a large number of officials, both serving and retired, and Congresspersons have visited Taiwan. As it is, Beijing is incensed with Trump’s legacy—and then came the reports of Pelosi’s visit. Its reaction was similar to that of a Bollywood baddy: those who play with fire will perish by it. Xi is said to have warned US President Joe Biden in a telephonic conversation against “playing with fire” over Taiwan. Has Biden taken the warning seriously? We don’t know yet, but former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo thinks so. He slammed Biden for not supporting Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Hollywood has kowtowed to the Chinese Communist Party, as also the National Basketball Association, but it should not be the case where an American administration, Pompeo rightly said. But is Biden listening?
