Pelosi in Taiwan: Stress test for the Biden-Xi relationship

At the end of their sometimes-tense phone conversation last week, President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping managed to sign off with a comparatively lighter moment.

Mr. Xi had warned the United States over the course of the two-hour-plus call not to “play with fire” over Taiwan, while Mr. Biden confronted his Chinese counterpart over Beijing’s theft of American companies’ intellectual property and other unfair economic practices.

But as they said their goodbyes, both leaders quipped they were leaving their respective teams with plenty of issues to work on together, from climate to global health.

“There was an exchange at the end about how much work they’d created for their teams in terms of following up on the specific pieces,” said a senior administration official who was one of several aides with President Biden for the phone conversation. “There was very much a clear, affirmative agenda that was put forward … for the teams to work toward.”

That determination by both leaders to keep channels of communication open between the world’s two premier powers and to further cooperation where possible has almost been forgotten in the days since the Thursday phone call.

The reason? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan during her trip to Asia this week.

Ms. Pelosi arrived on the island of Taiwan across from mainland China Tuesday evening (Tuesday morning U.S. time) after days of speculation over whether the stopover would take place. In the capital, the Taipei 101 office tower was lit up with a greeting that flashed “Speaker Pelosi” and “TW♡US.”

China considers Taiwan part of its territory, and regards any diplomacy with Taiwan – especially from a high-ranking American official – as provocative interference in Chinese sovereignty. The United States has for decades maintained a “one-China” policy that formally recognizes only the People’s Republic of China, even as it pursues arms sales and a strong trade relationship with the vibrant island democracy.

Indeed, Mr. Xi’s statement in the phone call that “those who play with fire will eventually get burned,” as the Chinese government quoted him, was seen as a direct reference to Speaker Pelosi’s much-discussed plan for a Taiwan stop.

Her official itinerary was to take in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. Assumptions she would make the Taiwan stop solidified after anonymous Taiwanese officials assured American media Monday that the speaker’s visit, including an overnight stay, was a done deal.

Hers is the highest-ranking visit of a U.S. official since former Speaker Newt Gingrich included Taiwan in an Asia mission in 1997.

Search for common ground

Yet even as tensions flared further this week – China warned Monday that its military would “not stand idly by” at any provocation over Taiwan – some U.S.-China analysts say they are holding out for the Biden-Xi phone call’s calmer recognition of both sides’ interests in maintaining a relationship to carry the day.

“Both leaders approached their phone call from a position of domestic weakness, and that encourages both of them right now to find common ground if and when they can,” says Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ China program in Washington.

Despite the tensions raised by the trip, which he describes as “high-risk, low return,” Mr. Singleton says the two countries’ leaders appear to recognize that “there is value in maintaining exchanges, including on issues where they very strongly disagree.”

Others say the U.S. should give up any pretensions of a Cold War-style containment of a rising China and instead focus on “responsible competition” with Beijing. Such a policy would require “clear lines of communication and pragmatic diplomacy,” says Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia engagement at the Defense Priorities think tank in Washington.

Last week’s phone call, the fifth between the two leaders, was a welcome sign, he says, but insufficient given “today’s poor state of U.S.-China ties.” He recommends a “multiday session” to get relations on track.

For Mr. Singleton, one need look no further than the strong economic headwinds buffeting the two powers to pinpoint the primary motivation for both presidents to stabilize the bilateral relationship.

Mr. Xi faces a “serious slowdown in China’s export-driven economy that is rippling throughout the country in many ways, from rising unemployment to housing,” he says. “This domestic weakness tied to the economy pertains to Joe Biden as well,” he adds, citing high inflation, supply-chain disruptions, and other challenges – many of which have “roots” that “go back to China.”

U.S.-China relations were already increasingly taut as the U.S. has responded to Beijing’s more belligerent and confrontational actions in China’s neighborhood by shifting to a more assertive and competitive stance of its own.

Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has some in the Biden administration warning that China might view Russia’s difficulty achieving its war aims as a lesson that it should move against Taiwan sooner rather than later.

The trip’s risks

Ms. Pelosi’s Asia trip was originally planned for April and widely expected then to include a Taiwan stop. The pandemic delayed the speaker’s travel to Congress’ August break – by which time the potential Taiwan visit had bloomed into a heated controversy.

The White House reportedly attempted to discourage it, while others warned of the bad precedent the speaker would set by appearing to bow to pressure from Beijing.

“If we can allow the Chinese to dictate who can visit Taiwan and who cannot, then we have already ceded Taiwan to the Chinese,” said Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat whose own trip to Taiwan in April caused little uproar.

Even Mr. Gingrich, speaking last month at a conservative policy conference in Washington, said that while he disagreed with Speaker Pelosi on most things, “on this one I think her instinct is right. I hope she sticks to her guns.”

At the same time, many U.S.-China analysts said with tensions and suspicions between the two powers running so high, a trip to Taiwan by such a senior a leader would be particularly dangerous.

A trip right now – with Beijing questioning Washington’s commitment to the one-China policy, and Washington mulling the Ukraine war’s impact on China’s intentions toward Taiwan – could be the “single spark [that] could ignite this combustible situation into a crisis,” Bonnie Glaser, director of the German Marshall Fund’s Asia program, tweeted last week.

Others say the danger of a high-level U.S. visit to Taiwan is not so much that it risks setting off a big-power military confrontation right now, but that it deepens suspicions of the other’s intentions – suspicions which, if left unaddressed, could add to factors making future conflict more likely.

As Mr. Singleton at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies says, “Beijing is simply not convinced that this [Pelosi] trip does not constitute a change in U.S.-Taiwan policy.”

What actions might Beijing take now? No one believes the visit could occur at this point without any response. Some experts believe the Chinese military’s announcement Monday of live-fire exercises some 80 miles off Taiwan’s coast could be a foretaste of heightened belligerence.

“China stands at the ready and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will never sit idly by,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told reporters in Beijing on Monday. “China will take resolute and vigorous countermeasures to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Face-to-face meeting

Still, most think that the calmer approach to a tense relationship exhibited in the Biden-Xi phone call is likely to prevail.

Mr. Xi’s top priority is the Communist Party congress set for later this year at which he will seek (and very likely win) an unprecedented third term as party general secretary, some China experts say.

Moreover, Mr. Xi is pressing for a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Biden – perhaps at one of the Asian summits the two leaders are scheduled to attend this fall – as confirmation for his home audience that China is now on equal footing with the U.S. A crisis with the U.S. over Taiwan would at least unsettle those plans, they add.

Yet even after the heightened tensions over Ms. Pelosi’s Taiwan stop have eased, the hard work of developing a U.S.-China policy for the 21st century, including the Taiwan question, will remain, experts say.

The U.S. and China face an intensifying rivalry globally, Mr. Singleton says, “but it’s important we start taking the steps to ensure that rivals don’t become military adversaries.” One of those steps, some argue, will be keeping communications open and encouraging cooperation where possible, so that the relationship isn’t reduced to confrontation.

As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the architect of America’s opening to China, said in a conversation last month with Intelligence Squared U.S., the U.S. has to start by “understanding the permanence of China.”

The nonagenarian statesman then said that while it is “important to prevent Chinese or any other country’s hegemony,” it is also critical to recognize that “that is not something that can be achieved by endless confrontations.”