Four years ago, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took an historic trip to Taiwan, a key but unofficial partner to the U.S.
Pelosi touched down Aug. 2 in Taipei amid threats and saber-rattling from China. It was a historic moment. Pelosi was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island since former Speaker Newt Gingrich visited in 1997. Pelosi’s trip was intended as symbolic: to stick it to the “cowardly” and authoritarian Chinese and show the Taiwanese they were valuable to the U.S. But the trip also had real-world consequences, setting a new precedent that has left the U.S. and Taiwan in a worse strategic position than before her trip.
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Taiwan is important to the U.S. because it is a powerhouse manufacturer of semiconductors used in nearly all modern technology, from iPhones and cars to military and defense systems, and serves as a foothold in the Pacific against possible Chinese expansion. The U.S. has long maintained “strategic ambiguity,” acknowledging Beijing’s claim over Taiwan while still enjoying an “unofficial,” friendly relationship with the island democracy. In other words, the U.S. wants to keep China in limbo as to whether we would go to war over the island if the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tried to take it by force.
Beijing, on the other hand, has long seen Taiwan as a rogue province that will eventually be controlled again under its “One China” policy — an event that is beginning to feel almost inevitable. A lot has changed since 1997, when Gingrich last visited, as China is now one of the top global superpowers with an economy rivaling America’s. Fears have grown in recent years that China will soon try to invade Taiwan, or that Beijing and the PLA will exert so much pressure that the island will allow itself to be reabsorbed back into the Chinese political system.