Nancy Pelosi at risk of being shot down during Taiwan visit, US expert warns

The US and China are on the brink of the most dangerous confrontation in decades, experts warn.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Picture: AFP

The US and China are on the brink of the most dangerous confrontation in decades if Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi follows through with a planned visit to Taiwan, according to top Republican and Democrat experts on US-China relations.

“The Chinese military might react by flying into her airspace and escorting her plane, or even preventing her from landing, or in the extreme shooting it down,” said Bonnie Glaser, a veteran Taiwan watcher who brief Tony Abbott on the China-Taiwan dynamic on his trip to Washington last year.

“I think unlikely that they would shoot it down, but other steps short of shooting it down are likely,” Ms Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund, told The Australian in an interview, adding that the US was “walking into a crisis”.

President Joe Biden has warned the 82-year-old Speaker, who has a long history of opposition to the Chinese Communist party stretching back to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, not to travel to Taiwan in August for fear of inflaming already strained relations between Washington and Beijing.

“I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now,” Mr Biden said last week, in remarks that put both the president, and Speaker, in a difficult political situation.

Mr Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping are to speak on the phone on Thursday (Friday AEST) in their first phone hook up since March. The world’s two most powerful countries are at loggerheads over tacit Chinese support for Russia in Ukraine, Chinese economic and military coercion in the Indo-Pacific,

Since news of the Speaker’s visit, as part of a broader visit to Asia, emerged last week, Chinese government officials, publicly and privately, have warned the US against the Speaker’s visit, flagging “firm, resolute and strong measures” should it go ahead.

“The US must assume full responsibility for any severe consequence arising thereof,” Zhao Lijian, Chinese foreign affairs spokesman said this week. Ms Pelosi flagged a trip to Taiwan in April but cancelled it hours later after contracting Covid-19.

High-profile Republicans, including former secretaries of defence and state, Mark Esper and Mike Pompeo, have backed the trip.

It’s unclear how much military support would accompany the Speaker, second in line to the US presidency should something happen to the president, but military aircraft are likely to shepherd her, The Australian understands.

Zack Cooper, a former Bush administration official and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, couldn’t rule out an air skirmish akin to the Hanain Island incident in 2001 when Chinese and American planes collided, suggesting the White House warnings were “responsible”.

“I think we’re in situation where there is a floor on the escalation here, Xi would feel he as to do something,” he told The Australian, referring to the Chinese president, who is facing re-election in November for a third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

“China has a lot of escalation options that are really hard for us and Taiwan to match,” he added, suggesting a maritime response might be another option for the Chinese, who have drastically ramped up their military spending in recent year.

Former prime minister Paul Keating has labelled the trip a “reckless and provocative act … stupid, dangerous and unnecessary”.

Ms Glaser said US support for a “one China” policy was in disarray after repeated statements by Mr Biden – later walked back by the White House – that the US would intervene militarily to help Taiwan in the event Beijing moved to take over the island.

“He keeps saying the US has a commitment to defend Taiwan when in fact we do not have such commitment,” Ms Glaser said, who said Australia wouldn’t benefit from any US-China confrontation.

“It’s in Australia’s interest as it is in US and Taiwan to behave in a measured way, no use of course,” Ms Glaser said.

Richard Fontaine, director of the Centre for New American Security in Washington, also advised against the trip: “If we are going to provoke Beijing, I’d prefer to do it in ways that add real defence capability to Taiwan rather than symbolic acts,” he told The Australian.