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China’s foreign ministry bristled Tuesday at reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was planning a trip to Taiwan in August, saying she firmly opposed a visit.
Pelosi had planned to lead a congressional delegation to Taiwan, the democratic island claimed by Beijing, in April, but postponed her trip to Asia after contracting the coronavirus.
A visit this summer would make Pelosi one of the highest-ranking U.S. politicians to travel to Taiwan in recent years and the first House speaker to visit there since Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in 1997.
Pelosi’s office told The Washington Post on Tuesday, “We do not confirm or deny international travel in advance due to long-standing security protocols.” The Financial Times first reported news of Pelosi’s trip, saying she will also visit Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia.
“If the United States insists on going ahead, China will have to take firm and decisive measures to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.
Such a trip would cause “serious harm to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added, and “seriously affect the political foundations of Sino-US relations.”
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Taiwan’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Joan Ou said her agency had not received information related to reports of Pelosi’s visit.
Beijing claims Taiwan as its own and has vowed to achieve what it calls “unification,” threatening to use force if necessary to take control of the self-ruled island. For decades, the United States has walked a fine line, taking no position on Taiwan’s sovereignty status but repeatedly saying it opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, President Biden sent an unofficial delegation of former US defense and national security officials to Taiwan in March in an effort to show that the United States’ commitment to Taiwan remains “rock solid.”
Europe’s war and the superpower’s incursion into its neighbor have particularly resonated in Asia, with Taiwan taking steps to bolster its military readiness against any attack from China while Beijing has sharpened its rhetoric toward Taipei in recent months.
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During his first trip to Asia as president in May, Biden signaled a more confrontational approach to China and issued a stark warning against any potential attack on Taiwan. Asked if the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if it were attacked by Beijing, Biden said: “Yes, that is the commitment we have made.”
His comment represented a departure from the usual US policy of remaining vague and was quickly dismissed by aides and criticized by Beijing at the time. The United States has long maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity about the scope of American aid, deliberately making it unclear what it would do if it came to defending Taiwan.
Zhao told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday that Congress, as part of the US government, should adhere to the one-China policy, given the long-standing position of the United States that recognizes Beijing’s claim that there is only one China, with understanding that Taiwan’s fate will not be decided by force.
Pelosi has been a vocal critic of China and met virtually in January with Taiwan’s Vice President William Lai Ching-te when he was in the United States. He thanked her for defending human rights and called her a “true friend” of Taiwan.
Taiwan has lived under military threat from Beijing since Communist forces defeated the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, prompting the Nationalists to flee to Taiwan and set up a rival government.
In recent years, Beijing and Washington have had an increasingly strained relationship over trade, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, China’s claims to the South China Sea and Hong Kong’s autonomy, among other issues.
China’s defense minister, General Wei Fenghe, called Washington a “bully” in June and vowed to “fight all the way” to take Taiwan if a confrontation becomes necessary, intensifying a war of words with the United States.
Lily Kuo, Amy B Wang and Brian Peach contributed to this report.
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