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By Matthew Lee (AP)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S.-China relations are teetering on a precipice after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s visit to Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pelosi received a rapturous welcome in Taipei and was applauded with strong bipartisan support in Washington, despite the Biden administration\u2019s misgivings. But her trip has enraged Beijing and Chinese nationalists and will complicate already strained ties even after her departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Already, China is preparing new shows of force in the Taiwan Strait to make clear that its claims are non-negotiable on the island it regards as a renegade province. And, as the U.S. presses ahead with demonstrations of support for Taiwan, arms sales and diplomatic lobbying, the escalating tensions have raised the risks of military confrontation, intentional or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the trip could further muddle Washington\u2019s already complicated relationship with Beijing as the two sides wrest with differences over trade, the war in Ukraine, human rights and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wary of the reaction from China, the Biden administration discouraged but did not prevent Pelosi from visiting Taiwan. It has taken pains to stress to Beijing that the House speaker is not a member of the executive branch and her visit represents no change in the U.S. \u201cone-China\u201d policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was little comfort for Beijing. Pelosi, who is second in line to the U.S. presidency, was no ordinary visitor and was greeted almost like a head of state. Taiwan\u2019s skyline lit up with a message of welcome, and she met with the biggest names on the island, including its president, senior legislators and prominent rights activists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chinese officials were enraged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat Pelosi has done is definitely not a defense and maintenance of democracy, but a provocation and violation of China\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity,\u201d Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said after her departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPelosi\u2019s dangerous provocation is purely for personal political capital, which is an absolute ugly political farce,\u201d Hua said. \u201cChina-US relations and regional peace and stability is suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The timing of the visit may have added to the tensions. It came ahead of this year\u2019s Chinese Communist Party\u2019s Congress at which President Xi Jinping will try to further cement his power, using a hard line on Taiwan to blunt domestic criticism on COVID-19, the economy and other issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Summoned to the Foreign Ministry to hear China\u2019s complaints, U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns insisted that the visit was nothing but routine. \u201cThe United States will not escalate and stands ready to work with China to prevent escalation altogether,\u201d Burns said, according to the State Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House also said that Pelosi\u2019s visit \u201cdoesn\u2019t change anything\u201d about the U.S. posture toward China and Taiwan. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. had expected the harsh reaction from China, even as she called it unwarranted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are going to monitor, and we will manage what Beijing chooses to do,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alarmed by the possibility of a new geo-strategic conflict at the same time the West sides with Ukraine in its resistance to Russia\u2019s invasion, the U.S. has rallied allies to its side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The foreign ministers of the Group of 7 industrialized democracies released a statement Wednesday essentially telling China \u2014 by the initials of its formal name, the People\u2019s Republic of China \u2014 to calm down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is normal and routine for legislators from our countries to travel internationally,\u201d the G-7 ministers said. \u201cThe PRC\u2019s escalatory response risks increasing tensions and destabilizing the region. We call on the PRC not to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the region, and to resolve cross-Strait differences by peaceful means.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, that status quo \u2014 long identified as \u201cstrategic ambiguity\u201d for the U.S. and quiet but determined Chinese opposition to any figment of Taiwanese independence \u2014 appears to be no longer tenable for either side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting harder and harder to agree on Taiwan for both Beijing and Washington,\u201d said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, an emeritus professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Taipei and the U.S. Congress, moves are afoot to clarify the ambiguity that has defined U.S. relations with Taiwan since the 1970s. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will soon consider a bill that would strengthen relations, require the executive branch to do more to bring Taiwan into the international system and take more determined steps to help the island defend itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Writing in The New York Times, committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., lambasted China\u2019s response to Pelosi\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe result of Beijing\u2019s bluster should be to stiffen resolve in Taipei, in Washington and across the region,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are many strategies to continue standing up to Chinese aggression. There is clear bipartisan congressional agreement on the importance of acting now to provide the people of Taiwan with the type of support they desperately need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But China appears to be pressing ahead with steps that could prove to be escalatory, including live-fire military exercises planned for this week and a steady uptick in flights of fighter jets in and near Taiwan\u2019s self-declared air defense zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey are going to test the Taiwanese and the Americans,\u201d said Cabestan, the professor in Hong Kong. He said the actions of the U.S. military in the area, including a naval force led by the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, will be critical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China had ratcheted up potential confrontation weeks ago by declaring that the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland is not international waters. The U.S. rejected this and responded to by sending more vessels through it. Cabestan said that showed that \u201csomething had to be done on the U.S. side to draw red lines to prevent the Chinese from going too far.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Taiwan is on edge, air raid shelters have been prepared and the government is increasing training for recruits serving their four months of required military service \u2014 generally considered inadequate \u2014 along with annual two-week annual refresher courses for reservists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Chinese feel that if they don\u2019t act, that the United States is going to continue to slice the salami to take incremental actions toward supporting Taiwan independence,\u201d said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said that domestic U.S. support for Taiwan actually gives China added incentive to take a strong stance: \u201cChina does feel under pressure to do more to signal that this is an issue in which China cannot compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the immediate concerns about escalation and potential miscalculation, there are others who don\u2019t believe the damage to U.S.-China ties will be more long-lasting than that caused by other, non-Taiwan-related issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China is \u201cgoing to raise a huge fuss and there will be military exercises and there will be embargoes on importing Taiwan goods. And after the shouting is over, you will see a gradual easing,\u201d said June Teufel Dreyer, a Chinese politics specialist at the University of Miami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe situation never goes back to completely normal, whatever normal is, but it will definitely die down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
___<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AP writers Zeke Miller in Washington, Joe McDonald and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and David Rising in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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