August 2, 2022 Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of representatives arrived in Taiwan after a tortuous process. Days before, when the route of Pelosi’s journey was published, it soon encounter a violent opposition from China and a widespread concern form international community. To answer the action of Pelosi, Chinese government made harsh warnings and promised that PLA will take action if Pelosi do not change her route. However, the warn From China didn’t stop Pelosi, she arrived in Taiwan on the late night of August 2nd , PLA didn’t took direct operations but only held military exercises after Pelosi left. Pelosi got her way, her journey led to the 4th Taiwan strait Crisis, the tension in the cross-Straits relation rose and Both Chinese government and people were irritated. This crisis not only strongly disturbed the regional situation, but also harm the relationship and strategic mutual trust between China and USA in a very large extent.
A Political Adventure
Taiwan is a region located in the west bank of Pacific Ocean. Taiwan question is a problem left by history, it is the problem of a locality separatist power support by foreign forces by nature. The region is always under considerable controversy and in crisis because the strong expectation of reunify the country from China and the strategy of turning Taiwan to a stronghold to contain China from USA. Due to the particularity of Taiwan, it become gainful for US politicians to visit Taiwan. We can hear the news of US government officers or senators visit Taiwan every year. These visits usually cannot made waves to situation, but when there high level official take part in the visits, the situation will be in intensity. In 1997, Newt Gingrich, the number three in power in US government visited Taiwan after the visit Japan, this let to strong dissatisfaction among China. 25 years later, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has the same rank as Gingrich, visited Taiwan under the strong protest warning of China.
In essence, Pelosi’s Journey to Taiwan was a political show for the need of Democratic Party and herself in the US domestic political circle. At that moment, both the Democrats and Republicans were preparing for the mid-term election, and because of the incompetence of Biden government on problems like Inflation and control of epidemic, the Democratic Party had shown great disadvantage in all kinds of survey. When Democrats cannot rise their support rate by governance, a political grandstanding become the few option that may stimulate support rate. Pelosi may wanted to gain more support for herself and the Democratic Party by making tough attitude and have a firm line to China. The political tactic of hype the disputes about China to stimulate public opinion and seek for benefit from the incident is widely used by western politicians nowadays along with the rise of China. To be brief, this kind of political tactic is just functioning like variety shows. Politicians maintain their approval rating and attract more support by creating incidents and crisis. To emerge as focal points, politicians dare to take adventures which price might be national interests.
It is also worth to mention about the success of Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi on stock market. On June 17th , Paul Pelosi bought in 20000 shares of NVIDIA’s stock, which values 1M to 5M$, and just about a month later, there was a senate vote about CHIPS for America act, and the act was aim to promote US chip industry. NVIDIA was a significant player on chip sector and the pass of the act will bring Paul Pelosi great wealth. In January of 2021, before president Biden signed the administrative order of consuming 645 thousand of electric vehicles made in USA, Paul Pelosi had already bought stocks had a worth of 1 million$ of electric vehicle giant, Tesla. Because of the special identity of Paul Pelosi, people suspected that the Pelosis seek personal gain through public affairs, by providing Paul Pelosi the inside information of policies or acts and investigate the companies with government subsidies or support. After the scandal had been exposed, Paul Pelosi faced pressure from society and the survey and hearing from state legal apparatus. Nancy needed to create incidents to divert public attention, and a political adventure was one of the few options she had.
However, through the Crisis in August, there were not many of Pelosi’s colleagues stood with her. Firstly, most of the democrats didn’t show any kind of congratulation or support to Pelosi. Even the White house was trying to show that Pelosi’s visit was independent from them, as Pelosi was the speaker of House of representatives. Before Pelosi started her journey, the Pentagon expressed that the US military thought that visiting Taiwan was unwise. In this case, it was obvious that the opposing attitude among the Democrats (governing party) and the military was mainly because they were the ones who have to deal with problems arising from the crisis and they had to face the anger from China.
On the other hand, the republicans were quite glad to see troubles made by Pelosi, many republicans shown support to Pelosi. The Former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo even showed the willingness to visit Taiwan together with Pelosi. The sharp contrast between the statements made by the two parties indicated that there was an apparent split in the Democratic Party as not all democrats supported Pelosi’s act of visiting Taiwan. This can be detrimental to the support of the Democratic Party as some sensible voters leave.
China’s Response
For the Chinese Government, all of the major media are functioning as the tool for government to understand the will of people and mobilize the atmosphere of society. In fact, as early as in April of the year, Nancy Pelosi had already announced her journey to Asian-Pacific region for the first time, and Taiwan was on her route. This announcement gave rise to a strong opposition from Chinese medias, which was very different to the downplays to this kind of incidents (Foreign politicians visit Taiwan) normally in the past. The unusual reaction of Chinese media and the serious warning from Chinese government worked to hinder Pelosi. She soon announced that she had infected COVID-19 and the visit will be postponed. Due to the success in April, Chinese government choose the same tactic in July. The public opinion was mobilized, and the government sectors showed great determination to defend national interest. The statements of foreign ministry and defence ministry even gave the public an illusion that the plane of Pelosi will be blocked when it enters Chinese air space; or if Pelosi land in Taiwan, PLA will use force to interfere or even attack Taiwan. However, Chinese government didn’t took these radical reaction, because the level-headed and calm officials knew that having radical reaction will elevate the crisis, which can create unnecessary troubles. These troubles might be to attack Taiwan when PLA was not prepared and in ready condition, or the direct conflict between China and USA if the plane of Pelosi had been shot down. In a word, it was not the best time to solve the question of Taiwan.
As for Chinese people, it was a horrible moment when Pelosi’s special plane landed on Taoyuan airport. They were disappointed and dissatisfied to how the Chinese government react to Pelosi’s landing, which was just like the regular protest and condemn in the past when Chinese sovereignty had been harmed, and was very different to the strong reaction from the medias before Pelosi landed. This sense of upset is comprehensible. Following the rise of China and the its national strength enhancement, Chinese people are convicted that the government should have tougher attitude and reaction when there are provocative acts from hostile forces. On the other hand, there was an unexpected but reasonable gain from this crisis. In the few hours before Pelosi’s landing, it is noticeable that there were much more pro-China accounts active in oversea social medias than ordinary times. This phenomenon illustrated that China has a great number of young generation active in oversea social medias. They are confident to their country. They think independently and they are glad to speak up for the national interest. If this power can be organized well and the restrictions to VPN can be lower, it can help China to get some advantages in the struggle of international public opinion, on condition that Chinese government is functioning and governing well.
Turning our eyes back to Taiwan on August 2nd and 3rd , when Pelosi stayed in Taiwan. In fact, Pelosi didn’t stayed in Taiwan for a whole day, she arrived in Taiwan at the late night on August 2nd and left Taiwan at 17:53 on August 3rd , she actually had very little time for all kinds of meeting and there were barely substantial agreements can be made, which prove again that the visit of Pelosi to Taiwan was simply a political grandstanding.
Significance of Missiles over Taipei
At the same time Pelosi arrived in Taiwan, the Eastern Theater of PLA established the plan of military exercises, on the next day, the exercise area was established.
People can discover that the military exercise in early August was very special thought studying how the exercise zones were set. Compare with the exercise zone of PLA in the Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996, the exercise zones become much closer to the island. It shows that along with the progress of PLA on training, the upgrade in weaponry and the improve on China’s national strength, China wants to go further across the strait’s mid-line. Meanwhile, all six exercise zones had got clear objective. Three of them were set just outside the Keelung, Suao and Kaosiung, which are the main military ports of NRA ( the armed forces of Taiwan) . Moreover, the whole strategic position of the military exercise was just as a military blockade to Taiwan. Thus, Taiwan had actually been locked in the few days since the military exercise started. In the sea area between Pingtan (Fujian province) and Hsinchu (Western Taiwan), an exercise zone was set. As this sea area is the narrowest part of Taiwan Strait, it is very possible for PLA to launch amphibious operations in the area in the future.
The military exercise in August also provides an excellent environment for PLA to simulated actual combat training. This time, the exercise had an unprecedented scale. Dozens of missiles flew over Taiwan Central Mountains and over a hundred number of flights flew across the mid-line of Taiwan Strait every day. The traces of missiles can be clearly seen by Taiwan citizens, which not only cause panics but also made strong deterrence to Taiwan’s pro-independence power. Meantime, it was rare to have over a hundred number of military flights took off and flew towards Taiwan in the same day, it made NRA has to send fighters to monitor and do accompanying flights because there are possibility for PLA planes turn exercise into actual combat at any moment. On the other hand, NRA was in a very awkward situation. They had got both disadvantages on the quantity and quality of weaponry. Most of the NRA pilots had been exhausted to cope with the routine normal cruise of PLA around the island, and this kind of large-scale ‘ enemy’s situation’ could made further strain and fatigue to them. As for PLA, the NRA pilots in tension and serious created a great environment to simulate actual combat, people called this ‘training soldiers by their enemies’.
The more significant thing was that the plan of military exercise was published just after when Pelosi reached to Taiwan, which obviously demonstrated the fact that the decision-makers of China wanted to use the visit of Pelosi to help them create a kind of circumstance. In the case that when Pelosi still visited Taiwan under the strong warning and oppose from China, China got the reason to take radical retaliations. Therefore, in a sense, China got a better strategic position in the Taiwan Strait because of Pelosi’s visit.
Aftermath of the Strait Crisis
The Taiwan Strait Crisis in 2022 brought the world great uncertainty. Because of Pelosi’s visit, China canceled the China-US Theater Commanders Talk and 7 other co-operations between China and US government in protest. China government was very worry about the uncertainty on US decision makers, as president Xi and president Biden had talked on the telephone on July 29th about Pelosi’s visit. Although Biden had promised that US government will no support Taiwan’s pro-independent power, but Pelosi still got her way in August. This made Chinese government confused with whether Biden can control his own governing team and whether the agreements reached with Biden government were effective. Hence, this sense of confusion turned into distrust after the crisis because US government cannot bound their politicians to act upon their interests, but harm the relationship and the strategic mutual trust between China and USA.
When Biden government was accused of ratting its promises to China, it doesn’t really seems like the fault of white house. As US has a politic system of separation of three powers, Biden did not have the right to hold Pelosi back. However, as the Chief officer of US military, if Biden refused to let the armed forces to protect and cover, Pelosi would have given up her visit as there might be greater risk. Besides, as the leader of Democratic Party, it was possible for Biden to stop Pelosi by putting pressure within the party, though these acts can lead to a further split of Democratic Party. Since the China-US trade war started by Trump in 2018, the conflict between China and US became fairly sharp. Follow with this trend, similar or severer crisis will be very likely to happen in the future. Besides, the increasingly fierce struggle between the two parties will further divide the US society. Endless party strife might also drag the world to an unpredictable future.
After the visit in Taiwan, Pelosi flew to Japan and South Korea. As a result that Pelosi had already caused disputes and crisis in Taiwan Strait, Japan and south Korea avoided her like a disease, which was particular interesting. On the press conference held by Japan government, when the foreign minister was asked about how Japanese Government’s comment about Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, he answered that they cannot made any comment about this, but a stable China-US relation is vital. On the other hand, as a traditional ally of US, the visit of US high level officials will always get high standard reception from the president or prime-minister of South Korea. However, both the president Yoon and foreign minister did not arranged meeting with Pelosi this time. There were even no honor guards welcomed in the airport. Pelosi only met with the speaker of South Korea. Both Japan and Korea are allies of US, meanwhile, China is also the greatest trading partner for two of them. They really didn’t want to be forced to choose a side in this crisis while they had realized that Pelosi had irritated China.
Moreover, because Pelosi made a bad start, Taiwan might become a stage of anti-China forces to speculate ‘China Threat’. Also, there is great possibility for the next speaker of the House to visit Taiwan as an imitation to Pelosi. These potential acts might lead to a more unstable regional and international situation.
The Resolution
As a Chinese citizen, I was extremely angry on August 2nd. On that night, all my young Chinese friends shared the same feeling with me, we were frustrated because the sovereignty of our country seems to be violated easily. However, after I had gradually clam down, I realized that it was too early and not a good situation for solving the problem. If PLA offense Taiwan without adequate preparation, a great sacrifice would be unavoidable, the cost of govern and renovate Taiwan be higher than expectation, China mainland could face unnecessary trouble in economic. So, the decision of Central Committee was reasonable.
Many Westerners cannot understand why China has a desperate and strong hope to reunify Taiwan. Most of them don’t even regard Taiwan as a part of China, and they thought the acts of China were fairly aggressive. Meantime, the Western medias is also trying to show that reunifying Taiwan is not the wish of all Chinese citizens, but merely a target of the CCP or some leaders. However, as people share the same language, culture, ancestors and life-style on both sides of Taiwan Straits, we belong to an inseparable Chinese nation. Even though Taiwan authority’s De-Sinicization policy had downplayed the sense of belonging to China among young Taiwanese, but the prosperous economic and cultural exchanges between both sides still bond two sides together strongly. We are connected by our flesh even our bones are broken. On the side, in China mainland, if a leader does not work hard to promote the unification of the nation and solve problems about Taiwan properly, people will drive him out of power.
Along with the rise of China and the change of international situation, I believe the day that the Taiwan problem will be solved will soon come. The Taiwan question arose as a result of weakness and chaos in our nation, and it will be resolved as national rejuvenation becomes a reality.