Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan: what will happen now between the US and China?

A significant increase in China’s military presence in the Taiwan Strait and the use of hybrid warfare tactics against Taipei are the most likely consequences of a fleeting and controversial visit to Taiwan this Wednesday from US Legislative Assembly Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“This crisis reinforces the perception that the risk of conflict in the current decade is getting higher. China knows that Taiwan is not only an integral part of its modernization process, but also a force with which it can end the hegemony USA in the region and in the world,” Julio Rios, Director of the Observatory Chinese politics.

Less than 24 hours after Pelosi’s visit, the Chinese army began a live-fire military exercise around the island that included shutting down air spaces and maritime in several areas, which Taipei called a “blockade”.

Also last week China imposed trade sanctions on hundreds of Taiwanese food products, including citrus fruits, various types of fish, and numerous processed foods.

IN TRAY

For the experts Washington he did nothing but served on a platter Beijing arguments in favor of increased military pressure on Taiwan, the territory where China It claims sovereignty and considers the province to be a rebel province, since the Kuomintang nationalists withdrew from there in 1949 after losing the civil war against the Communists.

In fact, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry today condemned a new incursion by Chinese aircraft into its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADZ), most of which would have crossed the aforementioned median line.

HONG KONG AS SCREEN

The expert believes that China he could even “put in legislative action” such as an unification law, and even a specific timetable for it, and pointed to what happened in Hong Kong over the past two years as a “scenario to bring the situation under control.”

“If there (after the mass democratic protests of 2019) there was no repressive massacre, then there will be no Taiwan disproportionate military action. But it has a qualitatively significant reaction,” he said.

A year after the protests Hong Kong, Beijing imposed on the former British colony National Security Law that in practice, as condemned by international organizations, curtailed fundamental rights and freedoms there and sent dozens of activists and journalists to prison.

HYBRID WAR

Meanwhile, Shiani Perez-Cheng, an analyst associated with UK think tank Resilient Futures, told Taipei-based Efe that “the measures he is about to take China against Taiwan will not be a conventional war – in the case of Ukraine – it is more of a gray area with hybrid war tactics.”

This suggests, the ex-teacher of Spanish also clarified University of Salamanca”export sanctions, cyber-attacks, and further increased pressure in the international arena, including increased selective propaganda and third-party influence and economic coercion operations” to continue trying to “strangle Taiwan” by withdrawing support from other countries.

The sanctions, according to Perez-Cheng, are aimed at “turning the Taiwanese against their government,” although he specified that the island already has experience in dealing with such situations after sanctions imposed on the export of pineapples to China last year, which prompted Taiwan diversify your market towards Japan, Australia and Europe.

In turn, Xulio Rios emphasizes the importance of the economy so that in Taiwan’s local elections next November, the electorate does not punish the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (PDP) for its “recklessness” in confronting Beijing.

But the other side of the coin will be the possibility China to “win over Taiwanese public opinion” and that “the crisis is not leading to more support for the NDP in elections.”

All this is consistent with Perez-Cheng’s opinion that the island “knew that repression against China the vast majority will be against Taiwanand therefore did not officially “hype” the possible visit of the American leader before she landed in Taipei.

“Probably we are at the beginning of the fourth crisis in the Strait Taiwan (after the events of 1954, 58 and 95-97) and, undoubtedly, there will be diplomatic, economic, military and strategic consequences that will be delayed in time,” sums up Julio Rios.

EFE