House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is flying to Asia. The second-most powerful politician in the United States will visit Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan. She is also likely to visit Taiwan between the Indonesia and Japan legs of the trip.
Communist China is enraged over this. On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping used a video call with President Joe Biden to warn that “those who play with fire get burnt.”
Xi and Chinese Communist Party orthodoxy hold that Taiwan is not only a breakaway province, but also a betrayal of the greater Chinese Communist destiny. Xi sees himself as the helmsman leading the ship of destiny to a future of unparalleled global hegemony. A democratic, sovereign Taiwan is a very physical obstacle to that destination. To Beijing, a democratic Taiwan is a cancer that, one way or another, must be eradicated. Put simply, it cannot coexist with Communist China.
The timing of Pelosi’s visit is also aggravating to Beijing. Xi is preparing for an approaching confirmation for a third term as the party’s general secretary. Xi may even be immortalized with the title of chairman. That makes this a time of great joint political-personal significance for Xi. He wants to present an image of unquestioned strength and competence at home and abroad. This presentation of strength is particularly important for Xi, who is unusually paranoid even by the standard of autocratic leaders. The images of Pelosi landing on Taiwan, especially via a U.S. military aircraft, would undercut Xi’s desired leadership narrative. Xi would view Pelosi’s presence as a highly personal insult. It is this personal year of consequence for Xi that underlines why I believe Pelosi is making a mistake going to Taiwan now.
Three times, Biden has suggested a shift in the long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” over whether Washington would militarily intervene against any Chinese attack on Taiwan. While the White House has backtracked each time, Biden’s rhetoric has alarmed Beijing. Most U.S. intelligence and military analysts I have talked to believe that China is likely to conduct a military operation to secure Taiwan before 2030. Pelosi’s visit will only reinforce Xi’s desire to rip off the Band-Aid sooner rather than later. Contrary to the thinking of some, the relatively unified Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to encourage rather than deter Xi’s attack-sooner impulses.
This is not to say that Pelosi should cancel her trip. Now that Beijing has so overtly and aggressively threatened against her visit, she must go ahead with it. To do otherwise would undermine allies far beyond Taiwan and encourage Chinese aggression in other domains.
Nevertheless, that same issue of public presentation also underlines why Xi cannot now offer a weak response to the visit. The presence of the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group near the Taiwan Strait will not deter China from taking some kind of military reprisal. This is no longer the 1990s. Xi’s reprisal is unlikely to involve a direct threat to Pelosi, but it will be significant.
