Thursday 4 August 2022 01:16 AM Liz Truss backs Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan row as officials in Taipei brace for ... trends now

Liz Truss has backed Nancy Pelosi in a row over her visit to Taiwan row, as officials in Taipei brace for China blockade ahead of four days of military manoeuvres in the region. 

Taiwan scrambled a squadron of fighter jets last night to ward off a Chinese incursion as Beijing began its threatened intimidation of the island earlier than anticipated.

It comes as House Speaker Pelosi departed the country following a three-day visit, as she heads to meet her South Korean counterpart, National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo and other ruling party members today.

Her visit was seen by China as an affront because it regards Taiwan, an island of more than 23million people, as a breakaway nation and wants to reunify it with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Last night, Foreign Secretary and leadership hopeful Ms Truss said Pelosi, 82, was ‘well within her rights as speaker of congress’ to visit the island's capital Taipei — a visit which sparked an international incident.

Speaking at the Tory hustings in Cardiff, Ms Truss added that the real issue was the retaliatory action from China and she demanded ‘de-escalation’ by Beijing.

'The issue here is the language and the escalatory language that we have heard from china and I think that is irresponsible and I urge them to deescalate,' she said. 

Today Taipei is bracing itself for a blockade by China, with warships and planes set to surround Taiwan at the start of four days of aggressive military drills that will come within ten miles of its coast – and inside its territorial waters.

The six exercises will encircle the island, cutting it off by air and sea. They will heighten fears that China is practising for a possible future invasion, a scenario that has already been brought into focus by the war in Ukraine.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said it would ‘resolutely defend national sovereignty’, but warned commercial planes and ships to avoid the area as the drills, set to begin at noon today local time, would involve ‘long-range live firing’ and missile launches.

Beijing yesterday sent 27 of its aircraft, including 16 Russian-made Su-30 fighters, into Taipei’s air defence zone in an early act of menace, with 22 jets crossing the Taiwan Strait separating the two countries.

Taipei's generals have defied the threats, saying yesterday that they are not looking for a fight with China but 'won't shy away from one' either. 

'We are resolved to uphold our sovereignty, liberty and democracy' they said in a statement posted alongside a video of fighter jets, submarines, attack helicopters and warships on manoeuvres.

'We fear no threat or challenges. We are not eager for a fight, nor will we shy away from one. We have the capacity and the will to uphold our valued liberty and democracy, and maintain our region's stability,' the generals added.

The Chinese war games are a response to the controversial whistle-stop visit to Taipei by Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives, the most prominent US politician on Taiwanese soil in 25 years.

To Beijing’s fury, she met with the president and human rights leaders yesterday after landing in Taipei on Tuesday night. 

China considers the visit an affront because it regards Taiwan, an island of more than 23million people, as a breakaway nation and wants to reunify it with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Xi Jinping has reacted furiously to Pelosi's visit, which comes weeks before he is due to assume an historic third term as China's leader at the Party Congress.

Matthew Henderson, associate fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, told MailOnline: 'Xi has made so-called 're-unification' with Taiwan his chosen cause and hoped-for legacy as China's greatest leader since Mao.

'It would be as well to assume that in the run-up to the Party Congress, when he intends to secure permanent autocracy, Xi will be willing to take significantly greater risks than [Chinese governments of the past.]'

While the risk of immediate conflict around Taiwan is low, Mr Henderson added that 'it would be an error to assume that the Xi regime is able to hold back from disastrous adventurism when it has painted itself into such a corner over the right to 'reunite' with Taiwan, whose people want nothing of the kind and which the liberal world must not allow.'

He continued: 'Xi is already using the whole gamut of coercive state powers- including hostile military activity, to try to erode Taiwanese resolve and that of Taiwan's supporters.

'Xi could bring down the Taiwanese government by blockading the island which depends heavily on imported food and other staples. But confidence and resilience is growing, and Xi will not welcome this. 

'We should not rule out the possibility of sudden, devastating missile attacks on the central government that would bring a rapid collapse of resistance. Then the rest of the world could protest and sanction to no avail.

'Xi could, if he felt compelled to do so by threats to his personal authority, authorise such an assault at very little notice indeed. He may be counting in this as an element in his current campaign of bluff and coercive pressures on a global front.

'There is still time for the concerted energies of the free world to make it clear to Xi that his agenda to annexe Taiwan and impose unaccountable totalitarian rule on 23 million citizens of a vibrant democracy will never be allowed to succeed.'

During a press conference yesterday, Mrs Pelosi said: ‘Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy. America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.’

In a rebuke to Beijing, the speaker, a longtime China critic who defied US President Joe Biden to make the trip, added that ‘China has stood in the way of Taiwan’.

She even suggested her sex could be the reason why there was such an angry reaction, saying: ‘They didn’t say anything when the men came,’ in reference to previous US delegations. 

In a statement released after the Democrat, 82, had left for South Korea to continue a tour of Asia, she said that China ‘cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from travelling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing democracy’. 

Foreign ministers from the G7 group of nations said in a joint statement: ‘There is no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait.’

They added that China’s ‘escalatory response risks increasing tensions and destabilising the region’. Among those calling for calm was Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. She added of Mrs Pelosi’s visit: ‘It’s perfectly reasonable what is taking place and I urge China to de-escalate.’

The Chinese exercises will lead to a standoff not seen since the mid-1990s, when they were much further away from Taiwan. In 1996, the US navy dispatched two aircraft carriers close to the strait to effectively end the crisis.

Such a move would be more challenging now given China’s military growth, including vastly more capable missiles. Beijing sought to further punish Taiwan yesterday by curbing imports of fruit and fish and halting exports of sand, though it avoided disrupting the flow of microchips, which would send shockwaves through the global economy. 

Pelosi met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei yesterday, where she pledged continued US support for the island's democracy.

'Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy' she said in a short speech during a meeting with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen.

'America's determination to preserve democracy, here in Taiwan and around the world, remains ironclad.'

Ms Ing-wen added that the island of 23 million would not be cowed.

'Facing deliberately heightened military threats, Taiwan will not back down. We will... continue to hold the line of defence for democracy,' Tsai said at an event with Pelosi in Taipei.

She also thanked the 82-year-old US lawmaker for 'taking concrete actions to show your staunch support for Taiwan at this critical moment'.

Pelosi has now departed Taiwan, and will head to US allies Japan and South Korea next. 

China tries to keep Taiwan isolated on the world stage and opposes countries having official exchanges with Taipei.

'Today, our delegation... came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan,' Pelosi said at the event with Tsai.

Earlier, Pelosi said her group had come 'in friendship to Taiwan' and 'in peace to the region'.

Taiwan views itself as an independent nation separate from mainland China, but Beijing views it as a breakaway province that it

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