‘Unprecedented, foolish, dangerous’: Keating attacks Pelosi’s planned trip to Taiwan

Singapore: Former prime minister Paul Keating has accused US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of inflaming tensions with Beijing and risking a military conflict by planning to visit Taiwan next month.

Pelosi, who sits behind President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in American political seniority, would be the highest-level serving US official to visit Taiwan since the White House established diplomatic ties with Beijing in 1979.

Paul Keating has accused Nancy Pelosi of inflaming tensions with Beijing.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Keating said in a statement on Monday evening that it was hard to imagine “a more reckless and provocative act”.

“Across the political spectrum, no observer of the cross-straits relationship between China and Taiwan doubts that such a visit by the Speaker of the American Congress may degenerate into military hostilities,” he said.

“If the situation is misjudged or mishandled, the outcome for the security, prosperity and order of the region and the world (and above all for Taiwan) would be catastrophic.”

China views neighbouring Taiwan as a province of the mainland even though it has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. It has vowed to unify the island with China by 2049 and has engaged in a decades-long campaign of hybrid warfare to undermine the country’s defence systems. On Monday, Taiwan ran air raid drills in Taipei to guard against missile strikes - one of hundreds of measures it takes each year to prepare for the threat of invasion from the mainland.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning to visit Taiwan.Credit: Bloomberg

Keating has been critical of US and Australian policy toward Beijing, arguing that Taiwan’s future was a civil matter for China, and it was not “a vital Australian interest”. But that argument has been resisted by the Coalition, Labor and Taipei which have developed stronger unofficial ties in the past decade through trade offices, while officially maintaining Australia’s “one-China policy”.

Due to the sensitivity of travelling to Taiwan - which neither America nor Australia officially recognises diplomatically, no serving president, vice president or prime minister has visited the democratic island of 24 million people.

Biden last week publicly rebuked Pelosi’s plans for the trip. “The military thinks it is not a good idea right now,” he said.

Keating said a visit by Pelosi would be “unprecedented - foolish, dangerous and unnecessary to any cause other than her own”.

“Over decades, countries like the United States and Australia have taken the only realistic option available on cross-strait relations. We encourage both sides to manage the situation in a way that ensures that the outcome for a peaceful resolution is always available,” he said.

“But that requires a contribution from us – calm, clear and sensitive to the messages being sent. A visit by Pelosi would threaten to trash everything that has gone before.”

The Financial Times, which first reported Pelosi’s plans to travel to Taiwan last week, said the Biden administration had been warned privately by Chinese officials about a potential military response to her visit. Pelosi has not publicly confirmed her plans, despite members of Congress being invited to travel with her.

There has been no official comment from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen or Foreign Minister Joseph Wu since the potential visit by Pelosi was first reported, highlighting the sensitivity of the situation.

Wu told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in January that he expected China’s military incursions to become “more intimidating than ever” this year, but that Taiwan was prepared to defend itself.

“If you bow or if you show weakness, the Chinese will come with more pressure until you break,” he said.

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