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Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan sparks anger in the White House for undermining months of diplomatic efforts to stop Beijing

2022-08-04T10:43:28.214Z


Biden's bet on the stability of the Indo-Pacific region comes out badly from the Asian tour of the American leader


Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has put the White House in an uncomfortable position.

Although in the United States the Executive and the legislature share a tough stance towards Beijing, the fact that the Speaker of the House of Representatives set foot on the island in the midst of the Ukraine conflict, with China in Russia's orbit, has added unnecessary tension to the traditionally difficult relations between Washington and Beijing.

It has also forced the Government to exercise equidistance that, without disavowing the veteran Democrat, allows the Joe Biden Administration to get out of the trance.

Pure discursive rhetoric, with the corresponding lubricant of diplomacy, in the face of the palpable military threat in the Taiwan Strait, where the Chinese Army will hold live-fire maneuvers starting this Thursday.

“As we have said, the president has the right to visit Taiwan, as other presidents of the House have done before, without incident, and many congressmen for years, this one included,” said John Kirby, coordinator of strategic communication for the Council of National security.

But... "the trip was his decision, and Congress is an independent branch of the Government, as you all know," the senior official stressed during the daily press conference at the White House.

Neither the location chosen for the statement nor the content of the statement were incidental.

More information

Why Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan scares the world

The keys to the conflict between China and the US

Ensuring security measures around Pelosi's trip to the region soon ceased to be the main objective of the White House.

The Biden Administration immediately focused on risk reduction.

A yes but no in terms of the opportunity and the relevance of the trip that Kirby explained with a multitude of adversaries.

"The trip is fully consistent with our traditional

one-China policy.

”, as the doctrine of strategic ambiguity is known, which excludes supporting unilateral actions by nationalist China, but at the same time reaffirms Washington's support for its security and defense.

In other words, diplomatic recognition of Beijing's fundamental guiding principle that there is only one Chinese government.

Under this doctrine, the US recognizes and has formal ties to Beijing, not the island of Taiwan, which China sees as an irredeemable province it hopes to one day bring back into the fold.

Washington neither rejects nor accepts Beijing's claim on Taiwan, but neither does it recognize the island's independence.

That difficult balance is now shaken by Pelosi's action,

Instability in the region

The visit has also raised suspicions in a regional key.

If from the first minute of his term Biden clearly opted for an economic and diplomatic strategy in Asia to counter China, reinforcing alliances, Pelosi's maneuver leaves regional partners especially exposed: from Japan to Australia, passing through South Korea or the small but strategic Solomon Islands.

Biden's message remains the same: despite the dispute in Ukraine, Washington has not forgotten its Asian friends, in a region subject to major lines of force, those marked by China and its traditional rival, India.

With a failed state like Sri Lanka, fed by the interests of Beijing and New Delhi, and with Afghanistan reactivated as a jihadist hornet's nest, adding instability to the region is like playing with fire.

In support of Pelosi, the senior staff of the Republican party has come out, with a letter signed by the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, the influential Mitch McConnell, and 25 other senators.

An article by Pelosi herself, published in

The Washington Post

as soon as she landed in Taipei, underlines "the US's unwavering commitment to Taiwan's vibrant democracy," but without going any further.

Kirby clinched, in case there were any doubts about it: “We oppose any unilateral change in the

status quo

by any of the parties.

We do not support Taiwan independence and we hope that the differences between one side of the strait and the other will be resolved peacefully."

So that it would not seem like an amendment to the entire trip, Kirby made Beijing ugly for having made the visit another crisis or at least "a pretext to increase its aggressiveness and its military activity in the strait."

To further fuel the debate, veteran Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has asked the White House for less ambiguity in its support for the island in the face of Chinese threats, arguing that Beijing can repeat in Taiwan the scenario provoked by Moscow in the Ukraine.

Menendez has aired his disagreement with what he considers an excess of tact on the part of Washington this Wednesday in a gallery in

The New York Times

.

The controversy has gone beyond the limits of the White House to fuel a bitter debate.

"Completely reckless."

These were the terms used by veteran columnist Thomas Friedman to describe Pelosi's initiative in the same newspaper hours before the stopover in Taipei was confirmed.

If Pelosi goes ahead, Friedman wrote, "against President Biden's wishes, he will do something completely reckless, dangerous and irresponsible."

The rostrum abounded in the inopportuneness of the action, to add another active front to the already existing Russia.

“If they think that European allies, locked in an existential war with Russia, are going to support us [in open conflict with Beijing] they are misreading the world.”

The piece that Pelosi has moved, recalls Friedman,

In June, Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed Beijing's strong support for the Kremlin in its demands on Ukraine.

The fact that China is one of the largest drone manufacturers in the world is not trivial: what the Russian Army needs most now, with the war stalled at the front, are precisely drones.

According to sources in the Biden Administration, China's response was to guarantee that it will not provide military aid to Moscow.

That precarious balance between containment and intervention may have been blown up by Pelosi's trip to Taiwan.

The previous visit by a top US official, by Newt Gringich in 1997, came at a time when China was weaker economically and militarily.

But with a recession looming, the economy showing signs of slowing down, and the energy supply

hijacked

in part by Moscow in response to sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine, the situation is not prone to slip-ups like that of Pelosi's maneuver.

It is also a unilateral action that portrays Biden as the disgruntled and unauthorized boss, almost short-circuited when it comes to curbing the momentum of his supposed political ally.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-04

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