Nancy Pelosi has invited senior lawmakers to join her on a trip to Taiwan, according to a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, providing the first apparent confirmation of the widely speculated visit.
The US House speaker’s possible visit to Taiwan is at the center of rising tensions involving the island, China and the US, which analysts fear are at their most dangerous point in decades.
Military activity in the region is also raising concerns, with reports of a US strike group moving through the South China Sea and an armed Chinese drone flying east of Taiwan as the island was beginning its annual defense exercises.
Texas Republican and senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul and Democrat Anna Eshoo, described by NBC as a close ally of Pelosi, told NBC on Wednesday that Pelosi invited them to Taiwan. Both declined due to a scheduling conflict.
The recorded comments from McCaul and Eshoo are the first apparent confirmation of the planned trip since the Financial Times reported last week. There has been no formal confirmation from the speaker or the White House, and Taipei will not comment until it has.
Supporters of the trip say it would be a strong show of support for Taiwan, which Beijing says is a breakaway Chinese province that must be reunited, by force if necessary. However, some have expressed concern that the timing, which is reported to be next month, comes at a particularly sensitive time in Chinese domestic politics that could prompt a more aggressive response from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Any member who wants to go, they should. It shows political deterrence to President Xi,” McCaul told NBC. “But [Pelosi] I should also pay attention to the military if it’s going to cause a backlash and escalate things.”
Beijing has raised strong objections to the visit by Pelosi, who would be the most senior US government official since then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich visited in 1997. Officials have warned of “consequences” if the visit continues, with some speculation that there might be. military activity that could increase or cause an accident.
In recent years, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) air force has sent an increasing number of warplanes into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) amid an escalation of “grey area” activities designed to test Taiwan’s responsiveness and exhaust its resources.
On Monday, Japan’s defense ministry reported that a Chinese armed reconnaissance drone had flown near Taiwan on a solo mission for the first time. It followed the PLA drone TB-001 across the Miyako Strait from the East China Sea to the Pacific near Taiwan. The next day, Taiwan’s president boarded a warship in the area to inspect the defense exercises, prompting some analysts to suggest the drone flight was a warning. Taiwan’s military exercises this week are scheduled annually and are not specifically related to current events.
It was unclear where the drone’s journey ended, with some media outlets reporting that it circumnavigated the island. The Guardian has not confirmed the reports.
Here is the tracking map provided by the Japan MOD of the PLA drone on Monday. There are some reports going around that he circled the island, but did he? Was he still out there when Tsai boarded the warship in Yilan? pic.twitter.com/PFttFpar7Q
— Helen Davidson (@heldavidson) July 28, 2022
Taiwan’s ministry did not report the detection, although it reported other PLA aircraft departures in the southwest ADIZ that day. Chinese state media seized on Taiwan’s silence, accusing it of failing to detect the drone, demonstrating “huge gaps in its air defense systems”.
The tensions surrounding a visit by Pelosi and the increase in activity have raised concerns that the situation could escalate, but some analysts have warned that it cannot be linked to military movements. “For Taiwan, China’s military threats are always there,” said Fang-yu Chen, a political science academic at Soochow University. “I’m not saying they’re not a threat. I’m saying threats are so common that they don’t need to be over-interpreted.”
On Wednesday, US officials said that if Pelosi went to Taiwan, the US military would increase the movement of forces and assets in the Indo-Pacific. On Thursday, the South China Morning Post reported that a US strike group, led by the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, had left Singapore, where it had been conducting a port visit, heading for the South China Sea. He was previously deployed to Yokosuka, Japan. The reason for his current trip was unclear, and the US representative office in Taipei declined to comment.