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China’s Foreign Ministry attacked on Tuesday after reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Is planning a trip to Taiwan in August, saying she strongly opposes a visit.
Pelosi had planned to lead a congressional delegation to Taiwan, the democratic island claimed by Beijing, in April, but delayed his trip to Asia after contracting the coronavirus.
A visit this summer would make Pelosi one of the highest-ranking American politicians who traveled to Taiwan in recent years and the first House spokesman to go there since Deputy Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) In 1997.
Pelosi’s office told The Washington Post on Tuesday: “We do not confirm or deny international travel in advance due to long-standing security protocols.” The Financial Times first reported the news of Pelosi’s trip, stating that he would also visit Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia.
“If the United States insists on moving forward, China will have to take firm and forceful measures to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.
Such a trip would cause “serious damage to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added, and “severely affect the political foundations of China-US relations.”
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Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said her agency had not received any information related to reports of Pelosi’s visit.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its headquarters and has pledged to achieve what it calls “reunification,” threatening, if necessary, with using force to take control of the self-governing island. For decades, the United States has gone down a fine line, not taking a position on the status of Taiwan’s sovereignty, but repeatedly stating that it opposes any unilateral change in the status quo.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden sent an unofficial delegation of former U.S. defense and national security officials to Taiwan in March, to try to show that the U.S. commitment to Taiwan remained “solid.”
The European war and the invasion of a superpower by its neighbor have resonated especially in Asia, with Taiwan taking steps to bolster its military readiness against any attack from China as Beijing sharpened its rhetoric towards Taipei in recent months.
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During his first trip to Asia as president in May, Biden indicated a more confrontational approach to China and issued a strong warning against any potential attack on Taiwan. When asked if the United States would militarily defend Taiwan if it is attacked by Beijing, Biden said, “Yes, that is the commitment we made.”
His comment represented a deviation from the usual U.S. policy of remaining vague on the subject and was quickly rejected by aides and criticized by Beijing at the time. The United States has long maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity about the scope of U.S. assistance, so it is not deliberately clear what it would do if it were to defend Taiwan.
Zhao told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that Congress, as part of the U.S. government, should comply with the one-China policy, referring to the long-standing U.S. position that recognizes the claim. of Beijing that there is only one China, with the understanding that the fate of Taiwan will not be decided by force.
Pelosi has been a vocal critic of China and virtually met in January with Taiwan Vice President William Lai Ching-te when he was in the United States. He thanked her for defending human rights and called her a “true friend” of Taiwan.
Taiwan has lived under Beijing’s military threat since communist forces defeated nationalists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, prompting nationalists to flee to Taiwan and establish a rival government.
In recent years, Beijing and Washington have had an increasingly strained relationship on trade, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, China’s claims to the South China Sea, and Hong Kong’s autonomy, among others. other issues.
China’s defense minister, General Wei Fenghe, called Washington a “harasser” in June and vowed to “fight to the end” to take over Taiwan if a confrontation is forced, escalating a war of words with the United States.
Lily Kuo, Amy B Wang and Bryan Pietsch contributed to this report.