Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 3: As many as 27 Chinese warplanes entered the Taiwan’s air defence zone soon after the United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the third highest officer in the American hierarchy after the president and the vice-president, left Taipei on Wednesday after a brief but very significant visit to the self-ruled country that China claims to be its own territory.
Pelosi ended her visit that heightened tensions with China, saying that she and other members of Congress in her delegation showed they would not abandon their commitment to the self-governing island. Ms. Pelosi, the first U.S. speaker to visit the island in more than 25 years, courted Beijing’s wrath with the visit and set off more than a week of debate over whether it was a good idea after news of it leaked. In Taipei, she remained calm but defiant.
“Today, our delegation… came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan and we are proud of our enduring friendship,” Ms Pelosi said during an event with President Tsai Ing-wen. The trip by Ms Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency and the highest-profile elected US official to visit Taiwan in a quarter of a century, has ignited a diplomatic firestorm.
“Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy. America’s determination to preserve democracy, here in Taiwan and around the world, remains ironclad,” she said. Her delegation’s visit to Taiwan was a show of support for the island she said and the Taiwanese President responded saying the island would “not back down”.
China, which claims Taiwan as its territory and opposes any engagement by Taiwanese officials with foreign governments, announced multiple military exercises around the island, parts of which will enter Taiwanese waters, and issued a series of harsh statements after the delegation touched down Tuesday night in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei.
China also announced live-fire military drills encircling Taiwan, in a move Taipei’s Defence Ministry said threatened the island’s key ports and urban areas. At some points, the zone of Chinese operations will come within 20 km of Taiwan’s shoreline, according to coordinates shared by the People’s Liberation Army.
Taiwan decried the planned actions, saying they violated the island’s sovereignty. “Such an act equals to sealing off Taiwan by air and sea, such an act covers our country’s territory and territorial waters, and severely violates our country’s territorial sovereignty,” Capt. Jian-chang Yu said at a briefing by the National Defense Ministry. With the risk of conflict or miscalculation rising, officials from outgunned Taiwan have tried to appear resolute to preserve public calm. “The defence ministry has closely monitored and strengthened preparations, and will respond appropriately in due time,” Taiwan’s Defence Department said.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry also said China’s military exercises breach the island’s territorial waters. “Some of the areas of China’s drills breach into… (Taiwan’s) territorial waters,” Defence Ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang said at a press conference. “This is an irrational move to challenge the international order.”
In economic retaliation to Ms Pelosi’s visit, China rolled out curbs on the import of fruit and fish from Taiwan while halting shipments of sand to the island. Southeast Asian foreign ministers will seek ways to help calm rising tensions over Taiwan at regional talks. The meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Phnom Penh later on Wednesday had planned to discuss the bloody crisis in Myanmar.
China has vowed to seize self-ruled, democratic Taiwan one day, by force if necessary. Beijing tries to keep the island isolated on the world stage and opposes countries having official exchanges with Taipei. Taiwan’s 23 million people have long lived with the possibility of an invasion, but that threat has intensified under current President Xi Jinping, China’s most assertive leader in a generation.
Japan has expressed concern to China over its military drills in waters around Taiwan. “The maritime areas announced by the Chinese side as those to be used for military exercises… overlaps with Japan’s exclusive economic zone. Considering the live-fire training nature of this military activity, Japan has expressed concerns to the Chinese side,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters.
The Chinese military exercises including live fire, are to start Thursday and be the largest aimed at Taiwan since 1995 when China fired missiles in a large-scale exercise to show its displeasure at a visit by then-Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui to the U.S.
Taiwanese President Tsai responded firmly Wednesday to Beijing’s military intimidation. “Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down,” Ms. Tsai said at her meeting with Ms. Pelosi. “We will firmly uphold our nation’s sovereignty and continue to hold the line of defence for democracy.”
China’s official Xinhua News Agency announced the military actions Tuesday night, along with a map outlining six different areas around Taiwan. Arthur Zhin-Sheng Wang, a defence studies expert at Taiwan’s Central Police University, said three of the areas infringe on Taiwanese waters, meaning they are within 12 nautical miles (22 kilometres) of shore. Using live fire in a country’s territorial airspace or waters is risky, said Wang, adding that “according to international rules of engagement, this can possibly be seen as an act of war.”
Ms Pelosi’s trip has heightened US-China tension more than visits by other members of Congress because of her high-level position as leader of the House of Representatives. Some other members of the Congress have visited Taiwan in the past year. China’s response has been loud and has come on multiple fronts: diplomatic, economic and military.
Shortly after Ms. Pelosi landed Tuesday night, China announced live-fire drills that reportedly started that night, as well as the four-day exercises starting Thursday. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force also flew a contingent of 21 warplanes Tuesday night, including fighter jets, toward Taiwan. China also asked the US ambassador in Beijing Nicholas Burns to convey the country’s protests the same night.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV published images of PLA drills and video Wednesday, although it was unclear where they were being conducted. Ms. Pelosi addressed Beijing’s threats Wednesday morning, saying she hopes it’s clear that while China has prevented Taiwan from attending certain international meetings, “they understand they will not stand in the way of people coming to Taiwan as a show of friendship and of support.”
She noted that support for Taiwan is bipartisan in Congress and praised the island’s democracy. She stopped short of saying that the U.S would defend Taiwan militarily, emphasizing that Congress is “committed to the security of Taiwan, in order to have Taiwan be able to most effectively defend themselves.”
Her focus has always been the same, she said, going back to her 1991 visit to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, when she and other lawmakers unfurled a small banner supporting democracy two years after a bloody military crackdown on protesters at the square. That visit was also about human rights and what she called dangerous technology transfers to “rogue countries.”
Ms. Pelosi visited a human rights museum in Taipei that details the history of the island’s martial law era and met with some of Taiwan’s most prominent rights activists, including an exiled former Hong Kong bookseller who was detained by Chinese authorities, Lam Wing-kee.
Ms. Pelosi, who is leading the trip with five other members of Congress, also met with representatives from Taiwan’s legislature. “Madam Speaker’s visit to Taiwan with the delegation, without fear, is the strongest defence of upholding human rights and consolidation of the values of democracy and freedom,” Tsai Chi-chang, vice president of Taiwan’s legislature, said in welcome.
The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to tone down the volume on the visit, insisting there’s no change in America’s longstanding “one-China policy,” which recognizes Beijing but allows informal relations and defence ties with Taipei.