Did Nancy Pelosi’s Unadvised Trip to Taiwan Further Exacerbate China’s Aggression Toward the Island Nation?

Did Nancy Pelosi’s Unadvised Trip to Taiwan Further Exacerbate China’s Aggression Toward the Island Nation?

Edited by: TJVNews.com

As international affairs continue to dominate the headlines, the State Department on Wednesday admitted that the United States is worried about China and Russia’s “burgeoning relationship” after Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan earlier this month, as was reported by the New York Post.

Putin accused the US of a “deliberate attempt to fuel the flames and stir up trouble in the Asia-Pacific” by allowing Pelosi to visit Taiwan on August 2nd.

Earlier this week at an international security conference in Moscow, the Post reported that Putin said,  “The US escapade toward Taiwan is not just a voyage by an irresponsible politician, but part of the purpose-oriented and deliberate US strategy designed to destabilize the situation and sow chaos in the region and the world. It is a brazen demonstration of disrespect for other countries and their own international commitments.”

Putin claimed Pelosi’s actions were an attempt to distract the American public “from pressing socioeconomic problems such as plummeting living standards, unemployment, poverty and deindustrialization.”

The Russian leader added that, “They want to shift the blame for their own failures to other countries, namely Russia and China, which are defending their point of view and designing a sovereign development policy without submitting to the diktat of the supranational elites.”

The New York Post also reported that State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Wednesday that Washington is troubled by the “burgeoning relationship in the security realm” between Moscow and Beijing.

“That is of concern because of the vision that the countries have for the international order is … starkly at odds with the underpinnings of the international system that have been in place for eight decades following the end of the Second World War,” Price said.

The Biden administration offered advice to Pelosi before her planned trip to Taiwan and urged her not to travel there, according to published reports. The Post reported that on Friday, National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said China “overreacted” to the speaker’s visit by conducting military drills near Taiwan, launching missiles into the waters around the island and surrounding it with more than a dozen warships.

“China used the visit of a US Speaker of the House, a visit that is consistent with our One China policy and is not unprecedented, as a pretext to launch an intensified pressure campaign against Taiwan and to try to change the status quo, jeopardizing peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region,” he said. “Its actions continue to be provocative, destabilizing, and unprecedented,” he said, according to the Post report.

China and Russia top the Pentagon’s list of adversaries in its 2022 National Defense Strategy, which lays out America’s key military concerns and priorities, as was reported in the Post.  Meanwhile, the US has simultaneously sent Ukraine nearly $10 billion in weapons and military equipment to fight off the Russian invasion that began February 24th, as was reported by the Post.

Axios reported on Tuesday that Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang said if Washington doesn’t “show restraint” in the wake of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, there will be “another round of tensions” — and no dialogue on issues like climate change and nuclear security.

The Beijing ambassador also warned on Tuesday that China will view further U.S. arms sales, official travel to Taiwan or naval activity near the self-governing island as provocations that will further destabilize relations and prevent progress on other issues.

Subsequent to Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan earlier this month, China conducted weeklong military drills, as was reported by Axios. They appeared to be a dress rehearsal for subduing Taiwan and involved newly aggressive steps, like disregarding the median line between Taiwan and the mainland, the report indicated.

Moreover, Axios reported that after Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) led another delegation to Taipei on Sunday, China launched a fresh set of smaller-scale exercises.

The White House contends that China is using Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to change the status quo and “intimidate and coerce Taiwan.” Axios also reported that Qin cited his own frantic efforts to prevent the visit — using “every channel possible,” he said — as evidence that China had no desire for such a pretext.

Qin rejected the idea that Biden — who said publicly that the U.S. military felt Pelosi’s visit was “not a good idea” — hadn’t sanctioned Pelosi’s visit, according to the Axios report. He argued that the administration had “accommodated” the trip, and that Congress “is not an independent, uncontrollable branch, according to international law.”

Both the US and China have acknowledged that tensions over Taiwan are escalating dangerously and poisoning the broader relationship, as was reported by Axios.

Qin spoke on-the-record for 80 minutes to a small group of reporters in Washington and said that the One China Principle — which asserts that there is only one Chinese state and that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China — must be the basis of all U.S.-China relations, according to the Axios report. Longstanding U.S. policy is to acknowledge China’s claims over Taiwan, but neither accept them nor back Taiwan’s independence.

Qin said that without that “foundation” in place, talks like those President Biden has proposed on nuclear security cannot proceed, the report indicated.

Asked about a comment by China’s ambassador to France that China will pursue “reeducation” in Taiwan after reunification, Qin said that Beijing had to “reinforce our [shared] national identity.”