China warned earlier this week that it would take “resolute and forceful measures” if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi followed through on her reported plans to visit Taiwan next month.
Pelosi had previously planned to go to Taiwan in April, but the visit was postponed after she tested positive for Covid-19. News about the plan for the August trip first appeared in The Financial Times on Tuesday, which prompted an outcry from the Chinese government. If she goes, she would be the first Speaker of the House to visit since Newt Gingrich traveled there in 1997.
President Biden also seemed to question the wisdom of the trip, but he presented the objection to Pelosi’s visit as coming from military officials rather than directly from him. “The military thinks that it’s not a good idea right now,” Biden said on Wednesday in response to a reporter’s question.
In this case, the military is right. While there is an understandable desire to show support for Taiwan in response to increasing tensions with China, Pelosi’s visit would be a serious mistake that would likely make things worse. Sending one of the highest-ranking U.S. officials to Taiwan is bound to be very provocative, and it would expose Taiwan to additional risks for the sake of nothing more important than a glorified photo op.
The Quincy Institute’s Michael Swaine summed up the problems with the proposed visit: “Pelosi visiting Taiwan is such a bad idea it’s hard to know where to begin in criticizing it. She is a senior member of the United States government. There is no upside to such a visit and only downsides.”
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi earlier denounced Pelosi’s proposed April visit as a “malicious provocation,” and nothing has changed in the months since then that would make the Chinese government tone down its criticism. If anything, U.S.-Chinese relations are worse now than they were a few months ago, as the Chinese government has said that it does not regard any part of the Taiwan Strait as international waters.
The U.S. rejects the Chinese position and U.S. naval vessels have been transiting through the Strait repeatedly, much to Beijing’s annoyance. Tensions are already high enough that it would be ill-advised to poke the Chinese government in the eye with a major visit. This is probably what informed the military advice that Biden mentioned.
Top Congressional leaders usually do not go to Taiwan, because whatever benefit might be derived from such a visit is not worth the backlash from Beijing that will follow. A visit by Pelosi or any high-ranking official amounts to goading the Chinese government publicly, and that all but guarantees an adverse reaction to the detriment of both the U.S. and Taiwan.
New Gingrich’s visit to Taiwan took place in a very different time. The United States had just faced down China during the Taiwan Strait crisis the previous year, and the U.S. was near the height of the so-called “unipolar moment.” The Chinese government’s response to Gingrich’s visit was much more muted than its rhetoric about Pelosi has been. China is much more powerful and assertive today than it was in 1997, and the U.S. is in relative decline. We should not assume that the Chinese reaction to a Pelosi visit would be the same now as it was then.
Whatever Pelosi’s intentions might be, the consequences could be dangerous. That could take the form of economic punishment or increased military activity that would put additional strain on Taiwan. Any punitive measures taken by China would then further sour U.S.-China relations. That would impair our governments’ ability to engage constructively on other issues of global concern, including climate change and the ongoing pandemic. It is entirely possible that the U.S. could wind up blundering into another crisis in the Taiwan Strait if it is not much more careful than it has been recently.
Furthermore, controversy over Pelosi’s visit threatens to overshadow Biden’s upcoming virtual meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. There has been speculation that Biden might reverse at least some of the Trump-era China tariffs in a bid to combat inflation, but if he does so now then he runs the risk of being attacked for “backing down” in the face of Chinese threats.
The tariffs mainly harm Americans, so those attacks would be absurd, but the politics of the China policy debate are anything but rational. Xi will also be less inclined to compromise if he thinks that Washington is preparing to embarrass him with a high-profile official visit to Taiwan a week or two later.
The report of Pelosi’s planned visit also comes in the wake of other visits to Taiwan by former top officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Secretary of Defense Mike Esper. During his visit, Esper called for an end to U.S. “strategic ambiguity.” Coming so soon after Esper’s remarks, a Pelosi visit would likely be interpreted as another step in the direction of making an explicit U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s defense.
Given that the president already erroneously declared in May that the U.S. has a commitment to fight for Taiwan, there is considerable confusion about the Biden administration’s policy on this question. The apparent lack of coordination between Biden and Pelosi over the August visit has only added to that confusion.
Because news of Pelosi’s planned visit leaked out in advance, the U.S. is already paying some of the costs for the trip before it has even been announced. If Pelosi now decides not to go to Taiwan, she and Biden will be accused by China hawks of “caving” to Beijing. The Biden administration has been wary of antagonizing hawkish critics on most issues, so it might end up endorsing a Pelosi visit despite its misgivings.
In response to Chinese criticism, there will be a temptation to send Pelosi to Taiwan to defy their government without regard for the reaction that it causes. It would have been better if the trip had never been suggested, and it would be foolish to go through with it out of some misguided sense of pride.
Managing U.S.-Chinese relations is one of the most important foreign policy tasks that our government has, and it is damaging for both countries and for the region when the relationship is managed in such a confused and slapdash way. The Biden administration needs to clarify what its China policy is, and it needs to make sure that the president doesn’t freelance and invent new commitments on the fly.
Biden should privately appeal to Pelosi to drop the idea of going to Taiwan, and he also needs to coordinate more closely with Congress to avoid more of these unwanted surprises in the future.
