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Biden says US military opposes Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan

#Biden #military #opposes #Pelosis #trip #Taiwan

A possible visit by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan is causing concern in Washington. President Joe Biden said the US military opposed it for fear of inflammatory tensions with China.

Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency after the vice president, has not commented on plans to visit Taiwan but reports she is considering a trip that has already outraged Beijing, which claims the island.

When asked late Wednesday if Pelosi should travel to Taiwan, Biden told reporters, “The military doesn’t think it’s a good idea right now, but I don’t know what the status is.”

He is also expected to hold virtual talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the next 10 days, which will likely focus on wide-ranging tensions between the world’s two largest economies and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Biden administration has increased support for Taiwan, but the United States is careful not to send high-level delegations to Taipei, but low-level officials in charge of trade or other less contentious areas, or former officials.

Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House of Representatives and outspoken supporter of Taiwan, visited the island in 1997, but China was then considered less capable of conquering the island.

China has increased air movements near Taiwan this year. CIA chief Bill Burns said Wednesday at the Aspen Security Forum that Beijing appears determined to use force in Taiwan, with a growing risk of action later in the decade.

China regards self-governing Taiwan as a province awaiting reunification. The defeated mainland nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war, but the island has since transformed into a thriving democracy and technological power.

– China Warnings –

Washington shifted recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, but Congress has since required the government to provide the island with weapons for self-defense.

Biden said in May the United States was ready to use force to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack and appeared to put an end to long-standing US uncertainty about whether to engage militarily, though the White House was quick to dismiss his comments .

Diplomats say the Biden administration is concerned that a visit by Pelosi — a member of Biden’s Democratic Party — would be viewed by China as part of an orchestrated government campaign, despite the fact that under the US Constitution, Congress is an equal branch of government with lawmakers who are free can travel as they wish.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said earlier this week that Congress is “an integral part of the US government”.

“If Pelosi visits Taiwan, it would seriously violate the one-China principle,” he said.

China’s Ambassador to Washington Qin Gang told the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday that the US one-China policy is “under threat.”

“The United States is hollowing out and blurring the One China policy. They are significantly expanding official ties with Taiwan by sending more officials to the island,” he said.

He said China still prefers “peaceful reunification” but that Washington must “constrain” pro-independence forces in Taiwan, where President Tsai Ing-wen has asserted the island’s separate identity.

Taiwan has been a rallying cry for conservative Republicans but enjoys bipartisan support in Washington.

Long an outspoken critic of Beijing, Pelosi outraged her hosts in 1991 by unfurling a banner in Tiananmen Square in memory of pro-democracy protesters killed there two years earlier.

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