Thu, Aug 04, 2022 page3

• PELOSI’S VISIT: US pundits voice mixed views on Pelosi visit

  • Staff writer, with CNA
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  US-based commentators expressed mixed views about US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, with the crux of their arguments resting on whether the risks of the visit outweigh its potential benefits.

  Pelosi, along with a US congressional delegation, arrived in Taipei late on Tuesday for a brief stay, defying Beijing’s repeated warnings that it would take targeted military actions in response to her visit.

  Prior to Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said such a visit would be “utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible.”

  

  People yesterday stand in front of a screen at a shopping center in Beijing showing a CCTV news broadcast featuring a map of locations around Taiwan where the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will conduct military exercises and training activities, including live-fire drills.

  Photo: Reuters

  “Taiwan will not be more secure or more prosperous as a result of this purely symbolic visit, and a lot of bad things could happen,” Friedman wrote on Monday.

  These include a Chinese military response that could result in the US being plunged into indirect conflicts with nuclear-armed Russia and China at the same time, said Friedman, a Pulitzer Prize winner.

  The timing of Pelosi’s visit “could not be worse,” as it deliberately provokes China when the US and its European allies are trying to keep Beijing from providing military assistance to Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, he said.

  “In short, this Ukraine war is SO not over, SO not stable, SO not without dangerous surprises that can pop out on any given day,” he wrote. “Yet in the middle of all of this we are going to risk a conflict with China over Taiwan, provoked by an arbitrary and frivolous visit by the speaker of the House?”

  Friedman said he believed it was a vital US national interest to defend Taiwan’s democracy in the event of an unprovoked Chinese invasion, but if the US was going to get into a conflict with Beijing, “at least let it be on our timing and our issues.”

  “This is not the time for poking at China, especially considering what a sensitive time it is in Chinese politics,” he wrote, referring to the upcoming 20th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress that is expected to grant Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) an unprecedented third term in office.

  In contrast, Ian Easton, senior director at the think tank Project 2049 Institute, considered Pelosi’s visit an important step forward in normalizing the diplomatic relationship between the US and Taiwan.

  Easton said the aggressive behaviors China has engaged in over the years have destabilized the region and even the world.

  It is time to recognize that Beijing has been trying to alter the cross-strait “status quo,” including by acting against the three US-China Joint Communiques that have long guided the US’ “one China” policy and has rendered the documents outdated, he said.

  Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin said that Beijing’s response to the visit could forever change the US-China relationship and subject Taiwan to longer-term pain.

  Beijing’s near-term retaliation would likely be aimed at Taiwan’s economy and society, while it would likely use Pelosi’s visit as an excuse to make changes to its military posture toward Taiwan over the longer term, Rogin wrote on Tuesday.

  However, Rogin suggested that Beijing’s overreaction to Pelosi’s visit might result in Taiwan and other countries accelerating their plans to reduce their dependence on China.

  “Beijing’s use of economic coercion and military aggression are only set to rise over time. Therefore, the international effort to bolster Taiwan militarily, economically and diplomatically must increase accordingly,” Rogin said.

  Separately, Miles Yu (余茂春), who served as an adviser on China policy to former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, said in an interview that China’s threats of retaliation over the visit by Pelosi would be “self-destructive.”

  Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, Asia’s most vibrant democracy and most poignant symbol of freedom, carries extra weight in highlighting the true nature of the Taiwan-China tensions, which is an epic battle between the CCP’s tyranny and the world’s democracies, Yu said.
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