"One of the freest societies in the world," says Pelosi of Taiwan 1:55
(CNN) --
Whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's risky trip to Taiwan was a valuable statement of US resolve or just baited China for no strategic gain depends. when or if Beijing's ensuing fury and military posturing will subside.
Pelosi visited lawmakers and President Tsai Ing-Wen on the self-governing democratic island on Wednesday, giving her hosts the hallmarks of a nation-state visit sure to infuriate the Chinese.
His trip has already caused a stir in strained US-China relations, with the communist giant sending planes to the edge of Taiwanese airspace and launching military exercises that sent an unsubtle message that Taiwan is surrounded.
OPINION |
A pain reliever from Taiwan for the anxiety induced by the visit of Pelosi
However, if these eruptions fail to escalate into a full-scale crisis in the Taiwan Strait, a vital strategic waterway, and the possibility of miscalculation between Chinese and Taiwanese forces, or even Chinese assets, is averted and Americans in the region, the storm over Pelosi's mission could be temporary.
The images of the speaker of the US House of Representatives bolstering a democracy under the giant shadow of China could become one of the emblematic moments of US foreign policy in Asia and the Pacific.
The geopolitical relationship between Washington and Beijing is the most important clash between nations in the world.
It is developing as a generational struggle between two civilizations eager to imprint their values, economic systems and strategic hegemony on the rest of the world.
While the Biden administration has followed the Trump White House in treating China as an adversary rather than a competitor, the primary goal of US policy remains to prevent what could be a disastrous future war between the two nations.
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So if Pelosi's visit -- a personal affront to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has made taking Taiwan an existential mission -- permanently worsens already bad US-China relations and brings the which some see as an inevitable confrontation between superpowers, could turn out to be a huge miscalculation.
The same will be true if his trip prompts Beijing to take action that shakes the peace and prosperity Taiwanese enjoy on their dynamic home island, a factor often ignored by China hawks who take hard lines to bolster their political position in China. USA
What Pelosi Accomplished
Will Pelosi's trip to Taiwan escalate into a conflict between the US and China?
6:37
From the House Speaker's perspective, the trip has gone well so far.
She captured the world's attention for days before arriving on a US military plane.
As a female political icon, she challenged the highest echelons of the Chinese communist leadership and refused to be intimidated, sitting down with another trailblazing leader, President Tsai.
She made a poignant stand for democracy, a core American value.
And Pelosi capped a political career that saw her unfurl a pro-democracy banner in Beijing in 1991 with an anti-Chinese Communist Party tour de force in Taiwan as fears mount that China will eventually try to take the island for the force.
More broadly, she showed China that the United States would not back down from Beijing's doomsday rhetoric and would operate wherever it wanted in the Asia-Pacific region, regardless of what the rising regional superpower thought.
"In the face of accelerating aggression from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the visit by our congressional delegation should be seen as an unequivocal statement that the United States stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, while defending itself and its freedom," Pelosi said in a Washington Post op-ed published when she arrived in Taipei.
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If this turns out to be Pelosi's last major foreign mission as House Speaker, with Democrats at risk of losing her in November, it won't be quickly forgotten.
While the trip caused concern among the foreign policy establishment, his trip garnered strong support on Capitol Hill, where support for the island runs deep, as does hostility toward China.
Unusually, Republicans warmly praised the House speaker, though some may have been motivated by a desire to paint her as tougher than President Joe Biden, who admitted last month that the US military was unhappy with the prospect of his trip to Taiwan.
"We support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan," 26 Republican senators said in a statement.
"This trip is consistent with America's One China policy to which we are committed. We are also committed now, more than ever, to all elements of the Taiwan Relations Act."
The Taiwan Relations Act is legislation designed to deter a Chinese invasion of the island and commits the United States to selling defensive weapons to the government in Taipei.
Recently, there have been calls from hawks in Congress to strengthen the law and for Washington to end the policy of "strategic ambiguity" under which it is not specified what it will do if there is an invasion.
The Unintended Consequences Pelosi May Have Triggered
Why did Nancy Pelosi decide to visit Taiwan?
1:45
Pelosi's achievements in Taiwan are largely personal, symbolic, and short-term.
She does not appear to have said or done anything during her visit that violates the one-China policy, despite claims to the contrary by Beijing.
But at one point during her press conference, she praised the people of Taiwan for "the courage to change their own country to be more democratic."
The United States does not recognize Taiwan as a country.
Whether it was a slip or a deliberate choice of words, Pelosi's comment will be scrutinized by officials in Beijing.
His trip could harden a belief among Chinese leaders that the US Congress is hell-bent on toughening policy on Taiwan, an impression that could strain the diplomatic rope on the island's status to a breaking point.
While that may not be Pelosi's intention, misconceptions can drive military escalations in such a volatile foreign policy relationship.
A permanent increase in Chinese military and economic pressure on Taiwan, or a more hostile stance toward US naval and airborne forces, could bring the danger of conflict between the rivals closer.
If Pelosi's visit accelerates Xi's urgency and determination to try to take over Taiwan by military force, it will also have backfired.
White House officials, who initially raised concerns about Pelosi's visit, reworded their message to emphasize that she has every right to visit Taiwan, that Beijing considers its sovereign territory, and that her trip did not violate any Chinese agreements. that establishes that the People's Republic is the only legitimate government of China.
But they also seemed to prepare the American people for a prolonged period of escalating steps toward confrontation with China.
While it makes no sense for China to think war with the United States is in its interest, John Kirby, the National Security Council's strategic communications coordinator, laid out a roadmap of minor steps Beijing could take, evoking how that the United States and its allies declassified intelligence prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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"China appears to be positioning itself to take additional action in the coming days and perhaps longer time horizons," Kirby told reporters on Tuesday.
He warned that provocations could include missile fire into the Taiwan Strait or around Taiwan and large-scale violations of Taiwan's air defense identification zone by fighter jets.
He said China could also make public claims similar to those it has made recently that the Taiwan Strait is not an international waterway.
Critical to global supply chains already under strain in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the strait is traversed by much of the world's container shipping traffic.
Any attempt by China to compromise shipping lanes to increase pressure on Taiwan could have devastating economic consequences and profound political impact in the United States and elsewhere.
Even talk of cutting off transit across the strait could send global markets tumbling, exacerbating pain for Americans already struggling with the high cost of living in an inflation crisis that threatens to doom Democrats in the midterm elections.
"Some of these actions would continue from the trends we've seen in recent years, but some might be of a different scope and scale," Kirby said.
With that in mind, it's fair to ask whether Pelosi's visit accomplished anything worth a possible much longer-term deterioration in the security environment around Taiwan that could bring the US and China closer to conflict.
"I agree that he had a right to go. The question is does it make sense," said Phil Mudd, a former FBI and CIA official who is now a CNN counterterrorism analyst.
"She can go, but why? What's the silver lining?"
Meanwhile, former US Ambassador to China Max Baucus told CNN International's Richard Quest that, in the context of a dangerously worsening US-China relationship, Pelosi's trip was reckless.
“My opinion, frankly, is that she shouldn't have gone.
The goal of US foreign policy is to de-escalate tensions with China, not to escalate tensions,” said the former Democratic senator from Montana.
"Her visit of hers is clearly raising tensions. There is no foreign policy reason for her to go. The Taiwanese know we support them."
In China, as well as in the US, domestic politics may be creating a dangerous moment in Taiwan, a trend that the California Democrat's visit may have merely accelerated.
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