Pelosi’s Taiwan Travel Plans: ‘Not a Good Idea’ – or ‘Mandatory’?

Nancy Pelosi wants to travel to Taiwan as the third most senior politician in the US. China sees this as a provocation and protests sharply. The US government and its party put the travel plans in a dilemma.

The press spokesman for the US government was vague at best when asked by several reporters about Nancy Pelosi’s highly controversial travel plans: Whether the speaker of the US House of Representatives will travel to Taiwan or not has not yet been decided . He could only say something about such possible travel plans when it became concrete, at least not today, said Ted Price.

But the discussion about the travel plans of the third-highest politician in the United States continues happily. The remarkable thing is that although President Joe Biden’s Democrats always pay strict attention to internal party unity, the US President of all people stabbed his party friend Pelosi in the back when it came to Taiwan.

His military advisors didn’t think Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan was a good idea, Biden said in an impromptu press statement a few days ago. And since then, many in Washington have wondered whether that was just another thoughtless statement by the US President. Or whether Biden is actually trying to dissuade Pelosi from going to Taipei to avoid angering Chinese leaders. After all, it regards the democratically governed island of Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic, although it never was.

“Commitment to support Taiwan”

It would be really important for Pelosi to make the trip, Keith Krach, a former department head at the US State Department, told the ARD radio. Pelosi’s planned trip is seen as a provocation by the Chinese government. But the United States has “an obligation to support Taiwan — to maintain stability in the Indo-Pacific, to protect the world economy, and to promote democracy.”

Almost two years ago, when the US President was still a Republican and his name was Donald Trump, Krach himself traveled to Taiwan as, as he says himself, the highest-ranking official at the US State Department for 41 years. At that time, too, the communist leadership in Beijing threatened.

Secretary-General Xi Jinping fears nothing more than “United States,” says Krach. But nobody should “fall on their knees in front of ‘Kaiser Xi'”.

Sharp warnings from Beijing

China’s state and party leaders have repeatedly warned the United States of a possible trip to Taiwan by Pelosi since last week. China is ready to “take up this challenge“, stressed Chinese leadership spokesman Zhao Lijian. But if the US “stubbornly persists in its wrongdoing,” China is “obligated” to “take decisive and effective action to defend the country’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Chinese state media have even suggested military force to prevent Pelosi’s plane from landing in Taiwan.

What would a rejection mean?

Krach thinks that’s a bluff. It is more dangerous to cancel the trip now. China could otherwise feel emboldened to treat Taiwan the same way Russia treats Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin claimed before the invasion, Ukraine has always been part of Russia, but that’s not true: “Putin wants to rewrite history. And it’s the same with Xi Jinping. Taiwan wasn’t always part of China either.”

Other Republican politicians in the United States have also called on the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives to travel to Taiwan, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Pelosi is now in a bind. If her trip goes ahead, she risks further deteriorating the already miserable relationship between the US and China. And that at a time when President Biden needs the Chinese in some policy areas: in the fight against global inflation, for example, and in climate protection.

On the other hand, if Pelosi cancels the trip, the Republican opposition would brand the Democrats as “weak on China.” And that would be a kind of maximum penalty in the upcoming US midterm election campaign.