Joe Biden at risk of bending knee to Xi Jinping over Nancy Pelosi
In a pivotal moment in the US-China competition, Joe Biden has made a terrible mistake in publicly pressuring Nancy Pelosi to cancel her visit to Taiwan.
Joe Biden has made a terrible mistake in publicly pressuring House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel her visit to Taiwan planned for next month.
This could be a pivotal and potentially disastrous moment in the US-China competition. Pelosi would not be the first US speaker to visit Taiwan. Newt Gingrich did so in 1997.
Beijing claims that Taiwan, which is functionally independent, is a renegade province that must accept mainland control, even though it has only been ruled by Beijing for four years since 1895, and not at all since 1949.
When in 1979 the US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, it undertook formal commitments to Taiwanese security. It had convinced Taiwan to give up its nuclear weapons program on the basis that the US would protect the island.
When news of Pelosi’s planned trip became public, Beijing started issuing public and private threats. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing would take “strong counter-measures” in response to any visit.
US media has run stories that this could include military action of some kind, perhaps interfering with Taiwanese air space. In a disastrous move, Biden said the US military is against Pelosi’s visit. It was reported National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is also opposed. This looks like craven capitulation to Chinese military bluster and threats.
One lesson Beijing is apparently learning from the Russia-Ukraine war is that the threat of direct military action, implicitly against US forces themselves, severely constrains Washington’s actions. Retired US admiral James Stavridis, no uber-hawk as Hillary Clinton considered him as a running mate in 2016, rightly said: “We cannot allow China to decide whether or not senior US officials visit Taiwan.”
Biden plans to talk to President Xi Jinping on the phone within the next 10 days. The seemingly infallibly counter-productive John Kerry still entertains fantasies about Beijing’s co-operation on climate change. Kerry, as Barack Obama’s secretary of state, appeased Beijing over the South China Sea for no reciprocal benefit. Biden is moving towards removing the Trump tariffs on some Chinese imports.
Biden’s approval rating is dismal. He presumably thinks some kind of diplomatic happy moment with Xi would be a positive, especially if Donald Trump declares his running in 2024. Biden could contrast his stability with Trump’s chaos. But stability based on surrender invites disaster eventually. Until now Biden has had a reasonably good China policy, but it has always been contested within his own administration. Meanwhile, Beijing has been increasingly aggressive in harassing US and allied ships and planes in the region.
If Pelosi visits Taiwan she will break no international rule or convention. Naturally, those who almost always favour the line of the Chinese Communist Party, such as Paul Keating, think such a visit would be a mistake. They say military conflict could “break out”. But military conflict doesn’t “break out” the way bad weather comes along. It would require deliberate, fateful, illegal, unjustified action from Beijing.
Naturally, Washington has to weigh up these considerations. But if Beijing is able to push Biden around with military threats over something as innocent as a Pelosi visit to Taiwan, then we are in a worse situation than we thought, and Defence Minister Richard Marles should hurry up acquiring extra capabilities.
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