As Nancy Pelosi meets President Tsai Ing-Wen in Taipei, China’s People’s Liberation Army is encircling the island with at least six announced military exercises. However, these are only likely to be the beginning of weeks of retaliatory actions.
Nancy Pelosi and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen during their meeting in Taipei Wednesday morning.
When Nancy Pelosi met Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen on Wednesday morning, her speech was bursting with emotional pathos: “Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy,” said the 82-year-old in Taipei. Her appearance – side by side with the rather matter-of-fact, modest-looking Tsai – was not only intended to signal the “iron” and “bipartisan” support of the USA towards the democratically governed island state. He also sent the deliberately staged message out into the world that two top female politicians are bravely defying the Chinese threat. Although the People’s Republic was not mentioned directly, Tsai Ing-Wen in particular spoke clearly: “Taiwan will not back down. We will do whatever is necessary to strengthen our self-defense skills.”
Her office has not given an official appointment for Pelosi’s further daily routine, but according to local media reports, before her onward flight in the late afternoon she will complete an on-site appointment with a special appeal: at the so-called Jing-Mei Memorial, where the victims of Taiwan’s former military dictatorship are commemorated , the US democrat meets three prominent human rights activists – above all Wu’er Kaixi, one of the leaders of the Beijing student movement from Tiananmen Square.
Beijing summons US ambassador
According to state media reports, the State Department in Beijing has meanwhile summoned US Ambassador Nicholas Burns and given him a lecture. However, many of the previously martial propaganda journalists gave in this morning. Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the party newspaper Global Times, had demanded a few days ago that Pelosi’s plane had to be shot out of the sky if necessary. Now he writes on the online platform Weibo: “Of course, the fact that Pelosi actually landed shows that our deterrence was not enough. But it would be an exaggeration to think that we have suffered defeat or even national disgrace.” In fact, the dispute with the United States has only just begun and is doomed to be “long and drawn out.”
Taiwan’s military will likely be on high alert for weeks or even months. As a first step, China’s People’s Liberation Army announced at least six military exercises just a few minutes after Pelosi’s landing on Tuesday evening, which would continue until Sunday. The state agency Xinhua has already published the coordinates of the individual exercises. A look at the map makes it clear that the troops will not only literally surround Taiwan, but will also appear to invade its territorial waters – at least at one point the People’s Liberation Army will come within nine nautical miles of Taiwan’s coast. That’s the equivalent of just over 16 kilometers.
No more lemons from Taiwan
Meanwhile, China’s economic retaliation is also continuing: On Wednesday, the People’s Republic’s customs authorities announced that they would ban the import of citrus fruits from Taiwan because they had allegedly repeatedly contained pest residues in the past. In addition, the imports of two types of Taiwanese fish were blocked because corona viruses had been detected on their packaging. Such justifications are not credible. Instead, Beijing is obviously trying to flex its economic muscles.
China’s strategy of loud rhetoric could well prove counterproductive. Ironically, it is the immense Chinese threat that gives Pelosi’s journey its historical dimension. A number of commentators on the Chinese network remarked ironically: If both sides had made less noise, the US Congress leader’s visit to Taiwan would probably only generate a fraction of the public interest.