After 19 hours in TaipeiSpeaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi left for the next stop on her Asian tour, leaving behind an angry Chinaone Taiwan in a military encirclement, and the international community is concerned that the controversial visit could be the catalyst for a dangerous deterioration in relations between Washington and Beijing.

Sanctions and embargoes

China, which regards Taiwan as an integral part of its national territory, recalled the US ambassador to Beijing in strong protest and announced its first economic sanctions against the island, imposing an embargo on imports of a number of agricultural products. But the center of gravity of the Chinese response fell on the sphere of military pressure. Just yesterday, 27 Chinese fighter jets entered Taiwan’s air defense zone, of which 22 crossed the median line between the two neighbors, the Taipei military leadership said. And that was just the prologue. From now until Sunday, China will conduct large-scale air exercises and tests of conventional missiles around Taiwan, as the military authorities in Beijing have already announced.

“These actions amount to a naval and air blockade of Taiwan, encroaching on the country’s territory and territorial waters, and seriously violating our national sovereignty,” a spokesman for the Taipei Defense Ministry said. China, like 180 other countries in the world, including the US, does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.

Yesterday morning, Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan’s parliament and then met with President Tsai Ing-wen, conveying warm words of support. “Today the world is being asked to make a choice between democracy and totalitarianism. America’s resolve to defend democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains unwavering,” the US official said. During her short stay, she met with a former Tiananmen Square protest activist in Beijing in 1989, a Hong Kong bookseller arrested by Chinese authorities, and a Taiwanese activist recently released from China. He also met with the president of Taiwanese company TSMC, which manufactures about half of the semiconductors (chips) used worldwide.

Concern among Europeans and many countries in Southeast Asia about the possibility of an escalation of tensions between the US and China.

Interpretations

The Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed that Pelosi’s visit would cause serious damage to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and “have a serious impact on the foundations of Sino-US relations, since it directly violates the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China.” For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the visit as a deliberate attempt by Washington to provoke Beijing. Another was an unnamed U.S. official’s version that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken briefed his Chinese counterpart on the possibility of Pelosi’s visit during their five-hour meeting in Bali in July, and stressed to him that the Speaker of the House option was entirely personal and did not belong to the government. USA.

Distances from EU

Worried about the possibility of a split between the US and China, the EU distanced itself from Pelosi’s visit, saying through its representative that the Union “has a clear policy of advocating a united China” and that it “encourages the peaceful resolution of problems in the region.” The representative of the German government was also moving on the same wave. The countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have also expressed concern about tensions in the Taiwan Strait.