TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan lit up its tallest skyscraper, Taipei 101, to welcome former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the island during the summer of 2022 despite speculation that Taiwanese officials asked her not to come.
The United States and China have since reestablished direct communication between the respective militaries, severed because of Pelosi’s two-day trip, but two years on, the U.S. and Taiwan continue to contend with the consequences of what was supposed to be her diplomatic swansong as Taipei transitions to new Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.
Pelosi’s trip was, “of course,” worth it, according to Taiwan Institute for National Defense and Security Research Chinese politics, military, and warfighting concepts associate research fellow Tzu-Chieh Hung.
Hung, whose employer is Taiwan’s top defense and national security think tank, and connected to Taipei’s government, encouraged critics of Pelosi’s trip to consider more than the “direct response from China.”
“Even if there is no Nancy Pelosi visit, [Chinese President Xi Jinping] will still try to find other excuses,” Hung told the Washington Examiner. “The point is, after that, Taiwan, in fact, start to gain support from the United States and also other countries.”
“For example, international conference regarding the involvement of other governments, sometimes they will talk about the importance of the peace across Taiwan Strait,” he said.
National Cheng Kung University political science professor Hung-Jen Wang agreed that Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. government official to travel to Taiwan since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1997, shone a spotlight on the island’s relationship with China, which does not recognize its sovereignty.
“The international community realized through this event that China can act unreasonably, responding to the visit of the U.S. speaker of the House with disproportionate measures and military threats against the people of Taiwan,” Wang told the Washington Examiner. “This raises concerns about whether China would use similarly aggressive tactics to threaten neighboring countries and other members of the international community.”
“Moreover, Pelosi did not visit Taiwan exclusively — her Asia trip also included visits to Singapore, Japan, and South Korea,” he said. “It was China that deliberately escalated the situation, politicizing the event and sanctioning Pelosi and her family, displaying quite uncivilized behavior.”
Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Tien Chung-kwang told the Washington Examiner Taipei was grateful for support from “any person,” regardless of “the consequences.”
“We cannot think of the consequence, we cannot deny, we cannot refuse people come to Taiwan to show their support,” Tien said. “The things we probably we have to ask the other side: Why you going to have this actions against someone shows goodwill to one country?”
“So anyone come to Taiwan, [irrespective] of the consequences, we welcome them to come,” he added.
For Heritage Foundation Asian Studies Center research fellow Michael Cunningham, U.S. delegations are “generally helpful” to Taiwan because they bestow “legitimacy” on Taipei and “highlight the degree to which the U.S. is committed to its well-being.”
“But Pelosi’s visit probably hurt Taiwan more than it helped and was a textbook example of how not to execute these visits,” Cunningham told the Washington Examiner. “Taiwanese citizens and officials from across the island’s political spectrum appreciate the increasing support they receive from the U.S., but they get frustrated when U.S. politicians use symbolic expressions of support for Taiwan as a form of political grandstanding.”
“I don’t want to diminish the fact of Pelosi’s longstanding support for Taiwan, nor can I claim to know her motivations for this trip, but she made a huge deal out of her trip and its significance long before her departure, seemingly doing her best to draw Beijing’s ire,” he said. “These visits are extremely sensitive political issues in China, and, when they’re viewed as provocative, it’s always Taiwan that pays the price.”
American Enterprise Institute Asia strategy senior fellow Zack Cooper did not disagree, arguing Pelosi’s Taiwan trip did not “change very much” because China “escalated so substantially in response to her visit.”
“In Taiwan, essentially the division is that a majority of the [center-left Democratic Progressive Party] supporters, so from Lai’s party, think the visit was a good thing, and the majority of those on the other side, or on the two other parties, think the visit was a mistake,” Cooper told the Washington Examiner of the opposing right-leaning Kuomintang and center-left Taiwan People’s Party. “I think the challenge with that visit was, and this was my argument at the time, that it didn’t directly help Taiwan do anything specific. It didn’t give Taiwan more money, it didn’t give Taiwan the best equipment, but it did raise the tension.”
“I think it’s notable that after Pelosi went, [former Speaker] Kevin McCarthy didn’t go. [Current Speaker] Mike Johnson hasn’t gone,” the former White House National Security Council and Department of Defense adviser said. “I think it’s because a lot of people that assess the relationship feel that maybe this wasn’t overall a benefit to Taiwan.”
A spokesman for Pelosi declined to comment for this story, pointing the Washington Examiner to a 2022 opinion piece by the former speaker in which she wrote that her Taiwan trip “honor[ed] our commitment to democracy.”
Hung, from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, did not criticize McCarthy for not traveling to Taiwan last spring, when he met with Lai’s predecessor, former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.
“If McCarthy came, of course, there will be more aggressive military gestures from China,” he said. “But that’s what China wants. They want us to do in that way. … They want us to stop the further interactions.”
Former McCarthy spokesman Caleb Smith defended McCarthy’s decision, reminding the Washington Examiner that, unlike President Joe Biden, McCarthy supported Pelosi’s Taiwan trip at the time.
“Despite its location, it was a very bipartisan event, which McCarthy was adamant it be because when foreign affairs becomes a partisan matter, as we’ve seen with Israel, it’s not good for anybody,” he said.
Another former McCarthy spokesman, Chad Gilmartin, told the Washington Examiner McCarthy and Tsai sent “a strong message to Beijing that it cannot dictate where or when leaders from two thriving democracies meet.”
When asked whether Johnson should travel to Taiwan, Hung repeated that Taipei is helped and not hindered by more engagements with foreign governments or officials.
“If there’s only one or two countries that support Taiwan, you will be retaliate by China, no matter its political or economic means,” Hung said. “But if many countries, they all support Taiwan, then China will, [Xi] cannot do anything about it.”
Biden did not send a delegation of elected U.S. government officials to Lai’s inauguration, but the president did dispatch former White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, George W. Bush Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, one-time American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Richard Bush, and the current chairwoman of the U.S.’s de facto embassy in Taipei, Laura Rosenberger.
For its part, China ordered its military to do drills around Taiwan after Lai urged Beijing to “face the reality” of Taiwan’s “existence” during his inaugural address. The exercises were China’s third largest after those conducted in response to Pelosi and McCarthy’s meetings with Tsai.
Days after China’s drills, a bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and including Reps. Andy Barr (R-KY), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Young Kim (R-CA), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), and Joe Wilson (R-SC), arrived in Taiwan.
During a press conference with McCaul, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung told reporters that China’s drills were intended to underscore its “displeasure” with Lai, whom it denounces as a “separatist,” in addition to its “way of welcoming this delegation.”
“We must make sure no one in their right mind will try to upset the peace that let you thrive,” McCaul said alongside Lai last weekend. “America is and will always be a reliable partner, and no amount of coercion or intimidation will slow down or stop the routine visits by the Congress to Taiwan.”
To that end, a second U.S. delegation, this one led by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and including Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Laphonza Butler (D-CA), landed in Taiwan this week.
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Hudson Institute China Center Director Miles Yu, a former policy adviser to onetime Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, reiterated that “short-sighted” questions about Pelosi’s Taiwan trip are a form of political victim blaming because China’s response was to “bully” and “intimidate.”
“Friends have to keep visiting each other,” Yu told the Washington Examiner. “There is a time for America to really make a comment about what is wrong, what is right, what needs to be done, what should not be done, instead of expediency and to avoid doing the right thing and try to maintain the facade of a flawed relationship between China and the United States.”