In 1991, two years after the Tiananmen Square massacre that crushed the pro-democracy movement in China, Nancy Pelosi decided to visit Beijing. Accompanied by two fellow congressmen, the then representative of the state of California visited the site without permission from the hosts and held up a hand-painted banner with the phrase “To those who died for democracy in China”.
That is perhaps the image that the current Speaker of the United States of America hopes to convey when she poses for photos with the Taiwanese leadership in what is the highest-profile visit by an American politician to the island since 1997. Pelosi wants to show that Congress leads the opposition to China, and for that it is even worth visiting a disputed territory for more than 70 years and which has always been at the heart of the dispute between Washington and Beijing.
THE Sheet spoke with a national security analyst who worked in Pelosi’s office until last year. She asked not to be identified for fear of professional repercussions. An expert on the Taiwan issue and a graduate of a university in mainland China, the professional says she believes the House Speaker’s visit is part of a “more provocative” policy carried out by the Democratic government and that Biden and Pelosi are likely to be on the same page.
According to her, the issue of foreign policy, especially when it comes to Beijing, is one of the rare points on the American agenda that can be considered bipartisan — and there is some skepticism about reports that Pelosi would have insisted on the trip to show independence from the Legislature, given the various provocations by the White House since the Democratic administration began last year.
Biden even said that military sources at the Pentagon advised against the congresswoman going to Taipei, fearing retaliation, but his administration invited a representative of the Taiwan government to the presidential inauguration and sent diplomats to the island.
The analyst also explains that, although she is pressured by congressmen to transform the trip into a demonstration of independence, there is a certain mismatch between the policy conducted by Pelosi and the foreign policy demands of the younger wing of both parties. For her, most deputies and senators come from post-conflict generations with the communist world and carry the memory of the ideological dispute with the Soviet bloc — but the new phase in Sino-American relations demands pragmatism.
Miscalculation can have unforeseen consequences
Although the Chinese expressed strong disagreement with Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, few observers believe that all-out war is possible over the event.
Despite nationalist authorities and profiles of the Chinese Armed Forces having posted threats to Washington and to the Speaker of the House herself, Beijing’s response should not come in the form of open hostility against an institutional representative of the American State, in the opinion of Paulo Roberto da Silva. Gomes Filho, army reserve colonel.
Military affairs analyst and scholar of the military issue in Taiwan, Gomes Filho says that the US has not changed the “one China” policy and must work to lower the temperature on the Chinese side – even amid the visit and increasingly more declarations. hostile on both sides.
The possibility of an immediate military operation is also low, given the complexity of such a conflict. 150 kilometers off the Chinese coast and with a geography that makes it difficult for troops to land, Taiwan offers little space for so-called amphibious operations, which begin at sea and continue over land.
“Furthermore, although China has an army that has been modernizing very quickly, the force is inexperienced in armed conflicts. The last war in which China was involved was in 1979 against Vietnam — and they did not do very well”, he says. Gomes Filho.
Even so, the colonel says that, given the proximity of the congress that will choose the next Chinese leadership, in November, and the domestic difficulties caused by Covid, the main risk of the trip is in how Beijing will elaborate a response that meets the pressure of the civil society without triggering an armed conflict with the US. In that case, a miscalculation could have dangerous consequences.
“Perhaps Xi Jinping feels obliged to give a stronger response to the presence of Nancy Pelosi. It is a very delicate move that China will have to take”, he explains. “However, if she got on a plane, it is because intelligence data certainly shows that the Chinese would not have intended to shoot her down in flight, the only response that would lead to war.”
