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China was also angered when the Trump administration dispatched Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar to visit Taiwan in August 2020, ostensibly to highlight cooperation on the COVID-19 pandemic. and China are currently not merely in “strategic competition” with one another, but are also trapped in a security dilemma, it is not hard to imagine that Beijing views Pelosi’s visit as further “salami slicing” of the One China policy and strengthening of Taiwan-U.S.

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Besides, before visiting Taipei Gingrich stopped in Beijing to reassure Chinese leaders that the United States remained committed to a “One China policy” and was against Taiwanese independence.Įnjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Even though bilateral ties had been strained by the Tiananmen Massacre and the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, they were nowhere near as fraught as they currently are. Gingrich’s visit, however, occurred in a very different geopolitical epoch. In 1997, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich also visited the island. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as House speaker is not unprecedented. Get briefed on the story of the week, and developing stories to watch across the Asia-Pacific. military theaters, the working meetings between the two defense ministries, as well as the consultation mechanism on maritime military safety. On August 5, Beijing further signaled its displeasure with the Pelosi visit by sanctioning the speaker and her immediate family and canceling a range of bilateral exchanges, including the dialogues between the Chinese and U.S. Taiwan blasted China’s drills as a practice for a “ blockade.” These “combat drills” involved flying drones over the Kinmen islands, firing 11 Dong Feng ballistic missiles over Taiwan (five of which landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone), carrying out land attack and sea assault drills, island attack drills, and launching large-sortie incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ. Prior to Pelosi’s arrival, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launched a 21-sortie incursion into Taiwan’s ADIZ, with several Chinese aircraft reportedly “squeezing” the median line of the Taiwan Strait before circling back.Īs Pelosi arrived in Taipei, China’s Defense Ministry said it would launch “targeted military operations” in response to the speaker’s visit, and the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command announced it would conduct live-fire combat drills in six zones encircling Taiwan from August 4 to 7– which were subsequently extended until August 10. Taiwan’s presidential office and various government departments were also subject to cyberattacks. China retaliated by sanctioning natural sand exports to Taiwan and suspending imports of fruits and seafood from the island. Pelosi arrived in Taiwan late on August 2. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, in defiance of warnings from Beijing, the breadth and depth of Beijing’s fury brought the situation to the brink of another Taiwan Strait crisis. While it was anticipated that China would react strongly to U.S. We have argued previously in The Diplomat that China uses aerial incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) to signal its displeasure at closer diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei.