Chinese officials described it as a "provocative".
Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has fueled the decades-old crisis between Beijing and Washington
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen meets with Pelosi.
Reuters
Aircraft perform exercises in the eastern theater of the People's Liberation Army Command.
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America and China agree on very few issues these days.
But on the issue of Taiwan, they are not in perfect harmony.
Officials on both sides say the status quo surrounding the self-governing island - to which China clings to its subordination, and to which America supports its burgeoning democracy - is taking a dangerous turn.
While there is no war in sight, the fragile peace that has lasted for more than six decades could dissipate at any time.
This is evidenced by the crisis that erupted this month due to the visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan.
The visit was on the American agenda, but it was a "provocative" one, and it greatly angered the Chinese Communist Party.
The top Chinese diplomat claimed that the American "saboteurs" had destroyed the status quo.
After Pelosi left Taiwan, China conducted missile exercises over the island and live-fire exercises simulating a blockade of the island.
In January 1950, three months after the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, then-US President Harry Truman issued a statement declaring that America would not intervene militarily to aid the defeated Chinese nationalists who had fled to Taiwan.
Chinese leader Mao Zedong was already preparing to retake the island, and might have succeeded had the Korean War not broken out in June of that year.
The conflict prompted Truman to change course, supporting South Korea and ordering the Seventh Fleet to defend Taiwan in an effort to stem the spread of communism in Asia.
Four years later, when Chinese forces attacked some of Taiwan's remote islands, US officials threatened nuclear strikes on China, forcing Mao to back off again.
Since the last confrontation between the two sides in 1995-1996, America, China and Taiwan have all become in an uncomfortable situation dominated by ambiguity and contradictions, and the current situation is characterized by instability, especially when China bared its teeth.
If the world wants to avoid war in this part of the world, it urgently needs to achieve a new balance.
Seven decades later, the fourth crisis has begun to unfold, this time due to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan on August 2-3.
Pelosi has been the highest-ranking American politician to visit the island, to which China still maintains, since one of her predecessors, Newt Gingrich, visited in 1997. Although the crisis is far from over, she does seem to be entering a dangerous new era of more of hostility between China and America.
Taiwan's president, Tsai Ing-wen, has not taken any official steps toward independence, but the island is gradually moving away from the mainland.
China's "one country, two systems" offer seemed empty to Taiwan.
Today the situation has changed, with very few Taiwanese saying they want immediate formal independence, but others also preferring rapid unification.
US policy on Taiwan has also changed.
After intervening to protect it twice in the 1950s, it began to doubt that Taiwan was really worth defending, but the island's democratic success and importance as a semiconductor source made America stick to it.
Today, allies such as Japan see strong US support for Taiwan as a test of America's standing as a reliable hegemon in the western Pacific.
America did not formally pledge to defend Taiwan directly, but instead adopted a policy of "strategic ambiguity."
But in the midst of growing Sino-American rivalry, and politicians in Washington vying to demonize China, there is no doubt that America will join the fight with Taiwan today.
Indeed, President Joe Biden has emphasized this over and over again, despite his staff retracting his remarks each time.
The continued instability is largely due to the ambition of Chinese President Xi Jinping, its strongman.
He linked unification with Taiwan with his goal of "national renewal" by 2049. China's armed forces are building the capacity to retake the island by force.
The Chinese Navy now has more US ships in the region.
Some generals in Washington believe that China may regain the island in the next decade.
Although China's actions in this crisis were strong, fortunately, it was balanced, and indicated its anger and strength, while avoiding escalation.
Nor does the deployment of its forces indicate a readiness for war.
America sent similar signals, and postponed a routine test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Pelosi's plane took an indirect route to Taiwan, to avoid flying over Chinese bases in the South China Sea.
The danger is that China is using the crisis to set new borders beyond what Taiwan considers its airspace and territorial waters.
It could also try to impose stricter limits on Al Jazeera's dealings with the rest of the world.
That should not happen. The job of America and its allies is to resist these efforts without getting into a fight.
America can begin by re-establishing the rules that prevailed before the crisis.
It should be able to immediately resume its former military activities around Taiwan, for example, including transits through the Taiwan Strait and operations in international waters that China claims to be its own.
It could continue to expand military exercises with allies, involving them more in contingency planning over Taiwan.
Japan was furious when China fired missiles into its neighborhood and indicated that it could intervene in a war, greatly complicating the Chinese offensive.
The G7 condemned China's missile attacks, as did Japan and Australia.
But South Korea did not, and Southeast Asian nations were reluctant to take sides.
Even as it condemns China's moves, the Biden administration should stress that it does not support the island's formal independence from China.
Congress should avoid symbolic moves that will bring few real benefits to the island, such as renaming the Taiwan Representative Office in Washington, which is currently the Taiwan Policy Act.
Why not make a trade deal with Taiwan instead?
War is not inevitable.
By studying the Ukraine war, we can conclude that a supposedly easy victory could turn into a protracted conflict, with disastrous consequences at home.
America and Taiwan do not have to assume that any war to retake the island can fail, they just have to dispel China's suspicions and persuade it to wait.
• Since the last confrontation between the two sides in 1995-1996, America, China and Taiwan have all become in an uncomfortable situation dominated by ambiguity and contradictions, and the current situation is characterized by instability, especially when China bared its teeth. If the world wants to avoid a war in that region, it urgently needs to achieve a new balance.
• After seven decades, the fourth crisis began to unfold, this time due to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan on the second and third of August. Pelosi has been the highest-ranking American politician to visit the island, to which China still maintains, since one of her predecessors, Newt Gingrich, visited in 1997. Although the crisis is far from over, she does seem to be entering a dangerous new era of more of hostility between China and America.
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