Pelosi Archives | Development Watch Centre

When the world is still reeling from being hit by Covid-19, the Ukraine crisis and historic inflation, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker for the United States House of Representatives, third in line to the presidency decided on an Asia tour that included a stop at the geo-political hotspot, Taiwan. Pelosi claimed her visit was routine despite being the highest-ranking member of the US government to set foot on the island in over twenty years. Newt Gingrich took the daring trip back in 1997 when he was the republican speaker of the House of Representatives. He ignored protests from Beijing and even alarmed his fellow lawmakers when he unilaterally warned China that the United States would intervene militarily if China attacked the island. China eventually backed down mainly because it lacked the capabilities of taking on a super power like the United States at the time.

However, 25 years later, the USA is playing the same old games but with a vastly different China. Today’s China is not only a global super power on almost equal footing with the USA, but is also an economic power house with a modern military armed to the teeth with nuclear arsenal and run by a government that is not afraid to defend its territorial integrity as well as China’s interests.

This current provocation, despite denials from Washington is quite an obvious pattern that fits into the United States’ policy of strategic ambiguity when it comes to Taiwan. The USA is normally deliberately short on details when it comes to whether or how it would defend Taiwan in the event that Beijing decides to use all necessary options to achieve what China considers total unification.

On the other hand, President Joe Biden, in May when asked whether USA would intervene militarily if Taiwan was attacked, he responded with a ‘yes.’ This is similar to Gingrich’s threat of military intervention in 1997 before his trip to the Island. It is hard to believe that Biden was blind-sided by the Pelosi visit, given the escalatory rhetoric coming from him in the months leading up to the controversial Pelosi visit which he told the world “The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now.”
Secondly, US’ claim that it is willing to defend Taiwan while claiming it supports “One-China” policy itself makes the US more ambiguous and a “confused country”. How can the US, a founding member of the UN claim to be ready to defend Taiwan which UN general assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971 does not recognize? Would one be wrong to conclude that the US acts unilaterally and in total disagreed of international laws such as UN’s Resolution 2758 of 1971?
The policy of strategic ambiguity comes into play whenever Washington tries to test Beijing’s resolve on reunification with Taiwan whereby after a provocation, the US government shows its diplomatic face by reiterating its commitment to the Diplomatic solution of the ‘One-China policy’ that recognizes only one Chinese government-in Beijing and only has formal ties with the People’s Republic of China and not Taiwan. This strategy is to purposefully keep up the status quo and endlessly delay the reunification of the Island with Mainland China.

However, as recent events have indicated, this US strategy can only go so far until it back fires. It is a high school bully kind of strategy where the bully is having fun taunting their victim and expecting them to tuck tail and run, until the latter decides to stand up for themselves and then the options for the bully are drastically limited. In this case, when China decides to fight back, the US will be left with only two unacceptable options, to completely back down or to fight and establish dominance whereby the former option would be an embarrassment to US global standing and a letdown to Taiwan and the latter would ensure an unpredictable future for not only USA and China but for the entire world.

But currently the fear of a complete reunification between Taiwan and China has left the United States to deem the provocation worth the risk. Taiwan is too important to US interests in the Indo-pacific, the island is also the largest manufacture of semiconductors which are used in most of the world’s electronics. The Taiwan strait is also a vital gateway for all kinds of ships to and from North East Asia and basically enables a reliable supply chain.

Everyone around the world should understand the history of China and Taiwan to fully appreciate and answer the Taiwan question. Historically, Taiwan was under imperial China before Japan gained control of it in 1895 when the Qing ceded the island to Japan under the Shimonoseki treaty. Consequently, Japan ruled the island until it was defeated in 1945 and unconditionally surrendered through the Cairo proclamation and the Potsdam proclamation. Taiwan and the Penghu islands were returned to the Republic of China (ROC) governed by the nationalists at the time. A civil war broke out in mainland China between the nationalist government led by Chiang-Kai-Shek and Mao Zedong’s communist party. As a result, the communist party won the war in 1949 and controlled Beijing. The surviving members of the nationalist party ran off to Taiwan where they established their own Chinese government and ruled the island for several decades. In October 1971, the United Nations, through resolution 2758, expelled the representatives of Chiang-Kai-Shek (thus the ROC) and replaced it as ‘China’ by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Consequently, the United States of America, switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing, giving birth to the ‘One-China policy.’

Therefore, Currently Beijing looks at US actions fueled by the Nancy Pelosi visit to Taiwan as a betrayal and reversal of America’s own policy and a defiance of international law passed by the United Nations. This time Beijing has responded harshly by sanctioning Speaker Pelosi and her immediate family members, suspending collaboration with the United States on important issues like climate change and escalating military drills within the Taiwan strait, hence effectively blocking off the Island from the world.

Currently, geopolitical hotspots are increasing, from Ukraine to North Korea, Iran, Syria, Gaza and now Taiwan. History has offered to the human species many lessons to learn from and do better in the future but every single time, we go on making the same old mistakes. In an ideal world, actors in the international community only have room to make new mistakes and not repeat old ones.
However, the current Taiwan tensions provoked by Pelosi’s trip prove that we are hell bent on making the same old mistakes until the final straw is wiping ourselves out of existence. Not to sound alarmist but if the current global political atmosphere stretches on for a few more years, humanity will once again find itself in the familiar territory of war and catastrophe but this time the implications could be apocalyptic. The world is tilting towards chaos, the world’s temperament is heating up and there are those who are determined to fan the flames.

Moshi Israel is a Research Fellow at Development Watch Center.

This week, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, arrived in Taiwan with congressional delegates on a visit that angered China which claims that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. China had warned of “serious consequences” if Pelosi went ahead with the visit.

Consequently, Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned U.S ambassador to China Nicholas Burns to protest Pelosi’s visit to China’s Taiwan. Also, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi issued a statement condemning the visit describing it as a serious violation of the “One-China” principle and a proof that “some U.S. politicians have become “troublemakers” of China-U.S. relations, and that the United States has become the “biggest destroyer” of peace across the Taiwan Strait and for regional stability,” read the statement.

Pelosi’s visit comes less than a week after US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a more than two-hour video call. Analysist say the call between the two leaders was an effort to reduce tension between the two countries whose relations are the poorest they have been in the past several decades.

Indeed, while they have not made it official, just days to Pelosi’s visit, the White House and the Pentagon made little secret of their opposition to such a visit. In late July, while responding to a question about then-rumored Pelosi possible visit to Taiwan, President Biden was clear saying: “The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now. But I don’t know what the status of it is.”

While US’ National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that claims that in a video call with President Xi Biden had “made clear that Congress is an independent branch of government and that Speaker Pelosi makes her own decisions, as other members of Congress do, about their overseas travel,” one can argue that Speaker Pelosi’s decision is irresponsible and goes against the US’ commitment to respect “One-China” policy. As Edward Luce, the US editor of the Financial Times noted in his July 22nd opinion, while protestations of US constitutional niceties – that Congress is separate to the executive, speaker Pelosi belongs to the same political party as the President; “Pelosi may think she is acting on principle. She is in fact exhibiting the exorbitant irresponsibility of the U.S. legislator – power without responsibility; the self-indulgence of a figure whose job it has never been to pick up the geopolitical pieces,” Edward Luce argued.

Again, one can argue that Speaker Pelosi’s Taiwan visit offers scholars of International Relations and Geopolitics an interesting realpolitik case. It shows us what happens when party politics trumps national security interests. It shows us what happens when tactical goals overshadow strategic objectives of a country. One can add that it gives us a glimpse of what happens when politicians at the end of their careers seek a final validation for their own ego rather than for the sake of the collective wisdom.

The tragedy with such is that any mistake can result into confrontation and possible conflict which would not only destabilise Indo-Pacific but entire world.

That said, the US policy toward Taiwan has for years been deliberately ambiguous. In 1979, China and the US signed communiques which resulted into normalisation of relations between the two countries. In these communiques, Washington committed to recognize “One-China” policy and de-recognised Taiwan. In what seems to be a deliberate ambiguity, Washington again says is also committed to providing Taiwan with defensive support which is itself a contradiction that Washington is willing to sale defensive arms to Taiwan which it derecognized as independent in 1979 as it committed to “One-China policy.”

While Speaker Pelosi claims that her visit to Taiwan is meant to “honour our commitment to democracy: reaffirming that the freedoms of Taiwan – and all democracies – must be respected,” when well analysed, Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is simply meant to extend US’ interests in the region as well as spreading Washington’s failing hegemony in the region as US continues nurturing its open secret of countering China’s growing influence.

From historical context, the logic that guides major powers like the US is simple, it is the logic of power. It is not protecting the so-called “democracy and freedoms or our values,” nor is it about international laws and norms or sovereignty as the US claims.

Also, important to note is that Pelosi’s Taiwan visit is a cobweb of politics. The visit came just three months to US’ Mid-Term elections where recent ABC News polls indicated that Republicans are 83 per cent favoured to win the House with Democrats chances of winning the house at just 17 per cent. It also comes at a time when the US congress is divided than ever with the house failing to reach a consensus on domestic key issues such as spending, gun regulations and abortion. Therefore, one can argue that speaker Pelosi hopes that by playing Taiwan card and showing she can flex muscle with Beijing, she can bring consensus to her divided house and her party win support which would give the 82 years old speaker another chance to keep her position.

Allawi Ssemanda, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at a foreign policy think tank, Development Watch Centre.

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