Will China square off against the United States over Nancy Pelosi’s likely visit to Taiwan? The answer may lie in the past, in the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis and the 2001 Hainan incident
United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn’t visited Taiwan yet, but the tensions between the US and China are at an all-time high.
Pelosi’s potential travel plan to the self-ruled island has triggered an angry response from Beijing, issuing a statement that its military will never “sit idly by”.
When it was reported that Pelosi, who is currently on an Asian tour of Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, would visit Taiwan on Tuesday night, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said “there will be serious consequences if she insists on making the visit”.
Also read: Explained: Why Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan has China seeing red
“We are fully prepared for any eventuality,” he said. “The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will never sit by idly. China will take strong and resolute measures to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Since then, PLA ships have been stationed close to the median line in the Taiwan Strait, which separates China and Taiwan, and several military jets flew close to the line on Tuesday morning, Reuters news agency reported citing unnamed sources.
NDTV also reported that Taiwan was holding drills within the country to prepare its citizens for an impending war. As per the report, sirens blared out loudly across Taiwan, streets were cleared and people moved into shelters on Monday, fearing the worst.
If Pelosi visits, there’s no idea as to what may happen. However, this will not be the first time that China has gone face-to-face with the US. Here’s a look back at the two incidents, which shape Washington’s ties with Beijing.
Why the tension over Taiwan?
As we delve into history, it’s imperative to understand the underlying issue of Taiwan. China and Taiwan have been separated since 1949 when the civil war ended with the victory of the Communists under the leadership of Mao Zedong.
The defeated Nationalists, led by Mao’s arch rival and chief of the Kuomintang (KMT) party Chiang Kai-shek, retreated to Taiwan.
Taiwan, which has been governed independently since then, is officially known as the Republic of China while the mainland is called the People’s Republic of China.
The island is separated from the mainland by the Taiwan Strait. It has a democratically elected government and is home to around 23 million people.
For over seven decades, Beijing has continued to view Taiwan as a Chinese province and vows to “unify” it with the mainland.
Also read: Explained: Why US and China are at loggerheads over Taiwan
Beijing’s stance is that there is only “one China” and that Taiwan is part of it, a view that is not held by all within the island nation.
China has been ramping up the pressure on countries worldwide to switch their allegiance to Beijing and cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Taiwan’s current president Tsai Ing-wen, leads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), leans towards eventual official independence from China.
At present, only 14 countries maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
When it comes to the US, in 1979, Washington revoked its diplomatic ties and its mutual defence treaty with Taiwan and established formal diplomatic relations with mainland China.
However, in 2016, then US president Donald Trump went against policy and spoke to Tsai after her win in the Taiwan elections.
China has been ramping up the pressure on countries worldwide to switch their allegiance to Beijing and cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan. AP
1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis
Also called the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis is a turning point in the relationship between US and China.
One Asian affairs veteran of the Clinton administration called it “our own Cuban missile crisis — we had peered into the abyss.”
So, what exactly happened? This is what unfolded.
Lee Teng-hui, the appointed president of Taiwan, was invited to attend his reunion at Cornell University in the US in May 1995. China strongly objected to the US visit of such a high-level Taiwan official and Secretary of State Warren Cristopher, sensitive to Chinese concerns, assured Beijing that Lee would not be granted a visa.
However, the Bill Clinton administration reversed its decision and granted a visa to Lee. He gave his speech in Ithaca, and Beijing went ballistic, literally. Beijing was concerned that the US was moving away from the “One-China Policy” and encouraging Taiwan to pursue formal independence. China also termed Lee a “traitor attempting to split China”.
In response, China began military exercises and fired missiles into waters just 20 miles from Taiwan’s coast. It was later revealed that one of the missiles passed over Taipei.
A report in the Washington Post said that on 7 March 1996, the US had monitored three Chinese M-9 ballistic missiles fired from China’s Huanan mountains toward Taiwan. They splashed down in the shipping lanes adjacent to Taiwan’s two principal seaports: first Kaohsiung in the south, then Chilung in the north, then south again to Kaohsiung.
Then Defence Secretary William J Perry warned Liu Huaqiu, a senior Chinese national security official, that there would be “grave consequences” should Chinese weapons strike Taiwan — words not spoken to China since the countries established diplomatic ties, and universally understood as code for a military response, as per the Washington Post report.
President Clinton, unsure of how far China would go, deployed the USS Nimitz aircraft battle group into the Taiwan Strait to deter any Chinese escalation. This was the first time the United States Navy had entered the Strait since President Richard Nixon pulled the Seventh Fleet out in 1972 as a goodwill gesture prior to his historic visit to China.
On the orders of the Clinton Administration, the USS Independence also proceeded from Japan to Taiwan-adjacent waters.
China’s efforts at intimidation didn’t help and in March 1996, Lee Teng-hui was re-elected to the Taiwanese presidency with 54 per cent of the vote.
The military tests and exercises also strengthened the argument for further US arms sales to Taiwan.
A Chinese fighter flies through the sky over Haikou, on China’s southern Hainan island. The Hainan island was a flashpoint between the two countries in 2001 when a US plane collided with Chinese jets. AFP
The Hainan incident
Another time that the US and China faced off, leading to a full-blown international crisis was the Hainan incident of 2001.
In April 2001, a US Navy EP-3E Aries II aircraft collided with two Chinese F-8 fighter jets near the Hainan Islands.
For those who don’t know, China claims the area near the Hainan Islands that includes the South China Sea Islands and the Paracel Islands are theirs. This claim has widely been disputed by the US and other countries.
According to news reports, on 1 April 2001, the American military aircraft was less than an hour away from completing their flight and returning to base when two Chinese J-8 fighters entered their immediate airspace to keep an eye on them.
One of the J-8s, piloted by Lt Commander Wang Wei made two close passes of the EP-3 aircraft, and on the third pass, cut it a little too close. The J-8 struck the big EP-3 on its third pass, destroying the EP-3’s radome (radar antenna dome) and critically damaging one of the propellers.
The damaged EP-3 made an emergency landing at Linshui airport, Hainan.
The 24-member crew on the EP-3 aircraft were taken into custody where they were interrogated on claims of carrying out spying activities.
After 11 days of interrogation, the American crew was released only after Washington said it was “very sorry” for the death of the Chinese pilot and for the spy plane’s landing on Hainan without permission.
However, that wasn’t the end of the story.
Initially, a team of technicians from the United States was sent to Hainan to repair the plane.
However, Beijing refused to allow the aircraft to be flown off Hainan Island, and instead, it was disassembled and flown back to the United States on 3 July 2001 via the Russian airline Polet in two Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo planes.
The United States eventually paid for the dismantling and shipping of the aircraft, as well as for the 11 days of food and lodging supplied by the Chinese government to the plane’s crew.
Beijing had also demanded $one million for the loss of the J-8 and the pilot, but the US declined and no further negotiations were held on the matter.
With inputs from agencies
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