American politician Nancy Pelosi, while serving as the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan on August 2, 2022. A delegation of five Democratic Party members of the House of Representatives accompanied Pelosi on the visit. The two-day trip to Taiwan was part of a tour of Asia that also included stops in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. President Joe Biden discouraged but did not prevent Pelosi from going; the White House later affirmed her right to visit the island.
Taiwanese foreign minister Joseph Wu received Pelosi and her delegation. Shortly after her arrival, Pelosi said that her visit was a sign of the United States' "unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan's vibrant democracy". Pelosi's trip included a visit to the Legislative Yuan and a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen before her departure for South Korea.
The visit was condemned by the Chinese government, which sent warnings through diplomatic channels to the U.S. government. After Pelosi's departure, China commenced large-scale military exercises encircling Taiwan, which ran for a week from August 4 to 11, 2022, initiating the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis. Additional "regular" exercises were announced to run in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea until August 15 and September 8 respectively, but ended early on August 10.
Background
The last visit to Taiwan by a US Speaker was in April 1997, by Republican politician Newt Gingrich. As Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Pelosi is second-in-line to the US presidency after the vice-president, making her the highest ranking US official to visit Taiwan since then. In 2021, she had already called for a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. On April 7, 2022, Japanese Fuji News Network first reported Pelosi's intentions of visiting Taiwan. Her Asian trip was postponed after she was tested positive for COVID-19. On July 19, 2022, the Financial Times revealed the possibility of Pelosi visiting Taiwan as part of her Asian tour.
Pelosi's tour of Asia was announced on July 31, 2022, to "reaffirm America's unshakeable commitment to our allies and friends in the region", with an itinerary initially limited to Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. On the morning of the day of the visit, August 2, it was still not known for certain whether the visit to Taiwan would take place. White House Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council representative John Kirby said on the evening of August 1 (EDT) that China could respond with a missile launch near Taiwan or could conduct other military exercises to show its disapproval of the visit of an American politician. At the same time, Kirby said that the US was not afraid of threats from China and would not sit idly by in the event of any aggression.
In an opinion article for The Washington Post, Pelosi wrote on August 2: "We take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy. As Russia wages its premeditated, illegal war against Ukraine, killing thousands of innocents – even children – it is essential that America and our allies make clear that we never give in to autocrats." Pelosi has long criticised the PRC and is outspoken about its alleged human rights abuses, also opposing the US forming closer economic ties with the PRC government in the 2000s.
On July 29, Taiwan finished conducting its five-day Han Kuang exercise, the country's largest annual military exercise, which included simulated interception of hostile attacks from sea and air.
Visit
After departing Malaysia, Pelosi's delegation arrived without incident in Taipei, Taiwan, at 10:43 pm National Standard Time on the evening of August 2 via a US Air Force transport plane and was received by Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu and Sandra Oudkirk, Director of the Taipei Office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Pelosi tweeted that her visit was a sign of the United States' "unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan's vibrant democracy." Upon Pelosi's arrival, both the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and opposition Kuomintang endorsed the visit and Taipei 101 illuminated a welcome message for the delegation. The delegation stayed overnight at the Grand Hyatt Taipei.
Pelosi's delegation included the following members of the US House of Representatives:
Following a breakfast meeting at the American Institute in Taiwan on the morning of August 3, Pelosi visited the Legislative Yuan with her delegation. While there, she was received by vice president of the Legislative Yuan, Tsai Chi-chang and addressed the legislature in a short speech, saying Taiwan was "one of the freest societies in the world". She advocated further US economic cooperation with Taiwan with the CHIPS Act, and in areas relating to climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and democracy.
She proceeded to the Presidential Office Building and met with President Tsai Ing-wen, who awarded her the Order of Propitious Clouds (with Special Grand Cordon). A closed media session was held afterwards with only Taiwan's Central News Agency, Bloomberg News, and Japan's Asahi Shimbun in attendance. Pelosi expressed her views that China's anger at her visit was due to her being a woman and not because of her rank as the highest-level American politician to have visited Taiwan in 25 years.
At noon, President Tsai hosted a banquet at the Taipei Guest House to entertain Pelosi's delegation. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company founder Morris Chang, chairman Mark Liu, and Pegatron vice chairman Jason Cheng were invited to attend.
The delegation's final activity was a visit, at about 2:40 pm for an hour, to the National Human Rights Museum at the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park documenting the White Terror period in Taiwan. During the visit, they met with Wu'erkaixi, a former student leader of the Tiananmen Square protests, Lam Wing-kee, a dissident Hong Kong bookseller, and Lee Ming-che, a Taiwanese activist who was imprisoned in China and Kelsang Gyaltsen Bawa, the representative of the Tibet Office in Taiwan.
In a press release, Pelosi declared that the visit "in no way contradicts longstanding United States policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, US-China Joint Communiques and the Six Assurances. The United States continues to oppose unilateral efforts to change the status quo." NSC representative Kirby reiterated this perspective at a press conference held during the visit saying, "The Speaker's visit is totally consistent with our longstanding One China policy." Pelosi departed Taiwan for South Korea after 6:00 pm on the evening of August 3.
Reactions
United States
President Joe Biden initially cautioned against the reported trip on July 20, 2022, saying the US military had assessed "it is not a good idea right now". However, on August 1, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that Pelosi had the right to visit Taiwan, adding that the United States would not be intimidated by China's expected escalation in response to the potential trip.
American politicians, officials, and analysts condemned the series of retaliatory measures that China undertook against Taiwan and the United States for the visit. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued this statement:
The United States has conveyed to the PRC consistently and repeatedly that we do not seek and will not provoke a crisis. President Tsai has said the same thing. China has chosen to overreact and use Speaker Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait. We anticipated that China might take steps like this. In fact, we described this exact scenario. The fact is the Speaker's visit was peaceful. There is no justification for this extreme, disproportionate, and escalatory military response.
Let me say again that nothing has changed about our "one China" policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three Communiques, and the Six Assurances. We don't want unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We do not support Taiwan independence. We expect cross-strait differences to be resolved peacefully, not coercively or by force.
Similarly, Republican Senators exhibited rare support for Pelosi. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was joined by 25 other Republican senators in expressing support for Pelosi's trip to Taiwan. In justifying their support, the Republican senators called the trip "consistent with the United States' One China policy". Although Texas Senator Ted Cruz was absent from the joint statement, he praised Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan while criticising Biden's lack of support. Similarly, Senators Rick Scott and Lindsey Graham also expressed approval of the trip despite their absence from the joint statement.
The White House announced on August 4 that the Pentagon has directed the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to remain in the area near Taiwan "to monitor the situation" as China launches missiles in the region. Furthermore, NSC spokesperson John Kirby said that the US has delayed a planned test of a Minuteman III ICBM to avoid increasing tensions. It had also summoned the Chinese ambassador Qin Gang to protest China's military actions in response to Pelosi's visit.
People's Republic of China
The People's Republic of China strongly condemned the visit, and called the visit a "provocation" by the US that "seriously infringes upon China's sovereignty". In a telephone meeting between US President Joe Biden and PRC leader Xi Jinping the week before, the PRC government warned the US to abide by the One China principle, that "those who play with fire will perish by it", and that the US would be "playing with fire" if Biden were to allow Pelosi to visit the ROC. Xi stated that China had no intention of going to war with the US over the visit and that both sides needed to maintain peace and security and avoid a "full-blown crisis".
On August 2, PRC ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun said that such a visit is provocative and will undermine China-US relations. The US ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, was summoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry to protest Pelosi's visit. Chinese ambassador Qin Gang delivered a firm formal complaint and expressed a vigorous objection to the White House National Security Council and the Department of State regarding Pelosi's visit. On August 7, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi further accused the US of interfering in China's internal affairs, condoning or tolerating "Taiwan Independence" forces, and deliberately undermining peace across the Taiwan Strait.
In response to Pelosi landing in Taipei, on the night of August 2, the PLA Eastern Theater Command began joint naval and air force exercises in areas north, southwest and southeast of Taiwan; long-distance, live-fire artillery shooting in the Taiwan Strait; and conventional-headed missile test firings in waters east of Taiwan. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense (MND) reported twenty-one People's Liberation Army (PLA) planes flew into its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on August 2. The MND reported that 22 PLA aircraft entered its ADIZ crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and an additional five fighters entered the southwestern part of its ADIZ on August 3. In addition, the PRC began large-scale military drills in six areas encircling Taiwan on August 4, which ended on August 11, marking the beginning of the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis, China's biggest escalation in 26 years. Taiwan reported 11 Chinese Dongfeng ballistic missiles were fired on August 4, while Japan reported nine ballistic missiles were fired and five of which landed in its exclusive economic zone, southwest of the Yaeyama Islands. According to the Japanese Ministry of Defense, this is the first time ballistic missiles launched by China had landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone and it lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing in response to the perceived transgression.
The drills caused disruptions to civil aviation and commercial shipping in the region.
The New York Times reported that many netizens in China were upset that government officials had made serious military threats, but did not follow through on them. In response to the criticism, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying later called on citizens to be "rational patriots" and to trust the government. Chinese government officials later worked to temper the public's disappointment, claiming that the government's response was carefully calibrated. In a similar vein, Chinese nationalist Hu Xijin issued a tweet in which he called on the Chinese Air Force to shoot down the plane carrying Pelosi while the Chinese ambassador to France Lu Shaye, speaking on a French TV program, called for the re-education of the Taiwanese population in the hypothetical event that China reunified with Taiwan. Hu's Twitter account was temporarily suspended for violating the platform's commenting rules while Lu's remarks were condemned by American and European officials.