US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Chinese-claimed Taiwan aboard a US military aircraft late on Tuesday, the first such visit in 25 years and one that risks pushing relations between Washington and Beijing to a new low.
Pelosi and her delegation disembarked from a U.S. Air Force transport plane at Songshan Airport in downtown Taipei and were greeted by Taiwanโs foreign minister, Joseph Wu and Sandra Oudkirk, the top US representative in Taiwan.
โOur congressional delegationโs visit to Taiwan honors Americaโs unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwanโs vibrant democracy,โ Pelosi said in a statement shortly after landing. โAmericaโs solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy.โ
Pelosi was on a tour of Asia that includes announced visits to Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. Her stop in Taiwan had not been announced but had been widely anticipated.
Chinese warplanes buzzed the line dividing the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday before her arrival, as Chinaโs leadership warned against the visit by Pelosi, who is second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency and a long-time critic of Beijing.
In the latest rhetorical salvo, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Tuesday that U.S. politicians who โplay with fireโ on the Taiwan issue will โcome to no good endโ.
The United States said on Monday it would not be intimidated by what it called Chinese โsabre-rattlingโ.
Most of Pelosiโs planned meetings, including with President Tsai Ing-wen, were scheduled for Wednesday, a person familiar with her itinerary said. Four sources said she was scheduled on Wednesday afternoon to meet a group of activists who are outspoken about Chinaโs human rights record.
Pelosi, 82, is a close ally of U.S. President Joe Biden, both being members of the Democratic Party, and has been a key figure in guiding his legislative agenda through the U.S. Congress.
Taiwanโs foreign ministry said it had no comment on reports of Pelosiโs travel plans, while her office had also kept silent.
On Tuesday night, Taiwanโs tallest building, Taipei 101, lit up with messages including: โWelcome to Taiwanโ, โSpeaker Pelosiโ, โTaiwan (heart) USAโ.
With tensions already high, several Chinese warplanes flew close to the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday morning before leaving later in the day, a source told Reuters. Several Chinese warships have also sailed near the unofficial dividing line since Monday and remained there, the source said.
The Chinese aircraft repeatedly conducted tactical moves of briefly โtouchingโ the median line and circling back to the other side of the strait while Taiwanese aircraft were on standby nearby, the person said.
Neither sideโs aircraft normally cross the median line.
Four U.S. warships, including the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, were positioned in waters east of Taiwan on what the U.S. Navy called routine deployments. The carrier had transited the South China Sea and was now in the Philippines Sea, east of Taiwan and the Philippines and south of Japan, a U.S. Navy official told Reuters.
It was operating with the guided missile cruiser USS Antietam and destroyer USS Higgins, with the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli also in the area.
Since last week, Chinaโs Peopleโs Liberation Army has conducted various exercises, including live-fire drills, in the South China Sea, Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, in a show of Chinese military might.
China views visits by U.S. officials to Taiwan as sending an encouraging signal to the pro-independence camp on the democratic, self-governed island. Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and has never renounced using force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan rejects Chinaโs sovereignty claims and says only its people can decide the islandโs future.
The United States has no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is bound by American law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
โSTATE PROVOCATEURโ
Russia โ itself locked in confrontation with the West over its invasion of Ukraine โ also chimed in on Pelosiโs expected visit. Maria Zakharova, Russiaโs foreign ministry spokeswoman, said the visit was a provocative U.S. attempt to pile pressure on China, a country with which Russia has forged a strong partnership in recent years.
โThe USA is a state provocateur,โ Zakharova said. โRussia confirms the principle of โone Chinaโ and opposes the independence of the island in any form.โ
Earlier on Tuesday, Pelosi visited Malaysia, having begun her Asia tour in Singapore on Monday. Her office said she would also go to South Korea and Japan but made no mention of a Taiwan visit.
Taiwanโs Defence Ministry said it had a full grasp of military activities near Taiwan and that it would dispatch forces appropriately in reaction to โenemy threatsโ.
Chinaโs defence and foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment.
In the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen, which lies opposite Taiwan and has a large military presence, residents reported sightings of armoured vehicles.
Chinese social media was abuzz with both trepidation about potential conflict and patriotic fervour.
โFaced with reckless U.S. disregard of Chinaโs repeated and serious representations, any countermeasures taken by the Chinese side will be justified and necessary, which is also the right of any independent and sovereign country,โ foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a daily briefing in Beijing.
During a phone call last Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Biden that Washington should abide by the one-China principle and โthose who play with fire will perish by itโ. Biden told Xi that U.S. policy on Taiwan had not changed and that Washington strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday that Beijingโs responses could include firing missiles near Taiwan, large-scale air or naval activities, or further โspurious legal claimsโ such as Chinaโs assertion that the Taiwan Strait is not an international waterway.
โWe will not take the bait or engage in sabre-rattling. At the same time, we will not be intimidated,โ Kirby said.
Bonnie Glaser, a Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told reporters in a call that the damage to American-Chinese relations done by the Pelosi visit would be hard to repair.
โWe all know how bad this relationship has been in the past year. And I just think that this visit by Nancy Pelosi is just going to take it to a new low,โ Glaser said. โAnd I think that itโs going to be very difficult to recover from that.โ
