There is no official confirmation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel to Taiwan in August, although a couple of lawmakers reported that she has invited them to travel with her, the Guardian reported today. Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) both reported they’d been invited but bowed out, reportedly due to “scheduling conflicts.” McCaul did urge any member of Congress to go who wanted to, to stand up to Xi Jinping, but added it might be a good idea to pay attention to the military “if it’s going to cause a blowback and escalate things.”
While President Xi Jinping made very clear today in his phone call with President Biden what China’s position is, provocative statements and actions by U.S. military and government officials are fueling tensions. Speaking from Sydney, Australia, where he was on a scheduled visit, Gen. Mark Miley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that should Pelosi travel, “we will do what is necessary to ensure a safe conduct of their visit.” He made these remarks just as the USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group were leaving Singapore to head into the South China Sea (see separate report).
Speaking at a July 26 forum at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs (CSIS), Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner provocatively warned that China’s navy and air force had become increasingly “reckless” in the South China Sea and that this “unsafe and unprofessional behavior,” concerns “not only U.S. forces, but allied forces operating in the region.” Should it continue, he added, “it is only a matter of time before there is a major incident or accident in the region.”
China, he intoned, is “systematically testing the limits of our collective resolve.” And, he underscored, the situation in the South China Sea isn’t an isolated challenge but reflects a “unified strategic approach by Beijing that spans the Indo-Pacific.” In this situation, he recommended, the Pentagon should bolster the self-defense capabilities of partners, develop a “combat-credible forward presence” in the Indo-Pacific, and form stronger alliances and partnerships in the region.
U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, made equally bellicose remarks in a July 26 interview with Associated Press, threatening that any “Asian aggressor"—China—that violates the sovereignty of any other nation in the region, will get the same treatment that Russia is getting from the U.S. and NATO for having invaded Ukraine. He repeated earlier statements by Biden that the U.S. would defend the Philippines were its sovereignty threatened, and warned that U.S. and other Western allies would continue to carry out their “freedom of navigation” patrols in the South China Sea. The Ukraine situation, he warned, showed that countries that are free and democratic can band together to fight adversaries “who are not.” No one should doubt that something similar would happen in the Indo-Pacific, he added, should such a “level of aggression” be used (by China) against the region’s democracies.
