Nancy Pelosi will lead a delegation to Asia in August, including Taiwan, the Financial Times said Monday (19), citing six people familiar with the matter. If she does, it will be the first time in 25 years that the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives has visited Taiwan.
Last January, then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft was scheduled to visit Taiwan but canceled on short notice. Taiwanese media later reported that the PLA informed the U.S. Department of Defense through the U.S.-China military liaison mechanism that it would not tolerate Craft’s visit to Taiwan to undermine China’s sovereign interests, stressing that when the U.S. plane arrived near Taiwan, PLA warplanes would follow it into Taiwan’s airspace to declare its position that Taiwan’s sovereignty belongs to China, and that it would not rule out firing if it was blocked by Taiwanese military aircraft.
Hu Xijin, the former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, suggested a countermeasure in which PLA military planes would “accompany” Pelosi into Taiwan and “exercise sovereignty over the island”.
Many Chinese netizens believe that instead of being constantly blackmailed by the U.S. and having the Foreign Ministry issue protests that are not necessarily useful, it would be better to calmly accept Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, thus allowing Chinese military aircraft to take the opportunity to cross the island and swear sovereignty.
“Russia had likewise been repeatedly blackmailed by the U.S., and eventually chose not to tolerate it anymore, and although everything does not seem to be playing out well now, it is not as bad as one might think. On the contrary, after this war, it is estimated that the Russian border can be peaceful for a long time,” said Tang Xu, a current affairs observer.
This is just as the consequences of Donald Trump’s trade war against China are not as bad as imagined either, Tang pointed out.
There is an old Chinese saying that “No breaking, no standing”. China is now facing economic difficulties caused by the pandemic, unemployment has risen sharply, and the Taiwan issue has long been hanging in the balance, making countless Chinese people lose patience. Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan may provide an excellent outlet for China to release its internal pressure, while completely changing the lukewarm situation in the Taiwan Strait.