Liz Truss slams China's 'inflammatory' response to Pelosi's visit; asks to de-escalate

Just moments after the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concluded her high-stake first in a 25 years visit to Taiwan despite the warnings from the Biden administration officials, British Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, on Aug 3 berated China’s so-called “inflammatory” reaction to the tour. Truss, who has been garnering support from the G7 group to ensure that the self-administered island has "the defence capability it needs” towards its sovereignty, called to de-escalate tensions as China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) kick-started the military drills in the contentious Taiwan Strait. 

While Pelosi made the trip to ally Taiwan despite strings of warnings from China threatening “countermeasures,” tensions soared to an all-time high as Beijing stepped up its military presence in at least six coastal zones within 12 miles of the island's sovereign waters. Chinese PLA has initiated live-fire exercises in the Taiwanese waters with missile systems, and artillery.

Expressing concern about China’s anti-Pelosi rhetoric and flexing military muscle, UK’s foreign secretary, during her campaign speech in Ludlow, Shropshire said: “I do not support China’s inflammatory language on this issue.” Furthermore, she demanded that Beijing dissolve tensions saying, “It’s perfectly reasonable what is taking place and I urge China to de-escalate.”

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, the Conservative MP Rishi Sunak's supporter Alicia Kearns slammed the Chinese Communist party [CCP] for turning Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan into a “flashpoint” for military escalation.  “They’ve placed this enormous strategic importance on the visit when they could actually have just dismissed it out of hand as nothing more than a political stunt or a low-level delegation," said the British official. “But they’re choosing to use it to draw a line in the sand and I think that shows how worried they are and how important this is for Xi Jinping as he attempts to reconsolidate his position going into the 20th national congress of the Chinese Communist party.”

Truss' remarks come as a delegation of UK MPs from the Commons foreign affairs select committee are planning a similar visit to Taiwan later this year. “We visit allies all over the world, we also visit our friends and we try to understand the biggest issues facing our country and also international security,” UK's Kearns stressed. 

In a wide-ranging democratic Taiwan rhetoric, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had also earlier suggested supplying defensive weaponry to Taiwan to counter China's aggression "well in advance" to prevent a Ukraine war-like scenario. Truss insisted that NATO must "make clear to China" that invading Taiwan in a Russian-style invasion would be “a catastrophic miscalculation" in Asia. The alliance must boost security in the Indo-Pacific region in order to protect Taiwan against China well in advance, Truss cautioned. She reiterated that Britain rejects “the false choice between Euro-Atlantic security and Indo-Pacific security” in favour of “a global NATO.”

Pelosi's vision of 'democratic Taiwan' irks China 

In Taiwan, Pelosi widely propagated the vision of a democratic Taiwan, stating that “world [today] faces a choice between democracy and autocracy.” US House Speaker swore America’s ‘ironclad’ support to the self-ruled island, underscoring its so-called “determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world,” a message which irked China that has earnestly worked to isolate Taiwan for many years. 

"Sadly, Taiwan has been prevented from participating in global meetings, most recently the World Health Organization, because of objections by the Chinese Communist Party," Pelosi said in a statement.

"While they may prevent Taiwan from sending its leaders to global forums, they cannot prevent world leaders or anyone from travelling to Taiwan to pay respect to its flourishing Democracy, highlight its many successes and reaffirm our commitment to continued collaboration."

In a regular briefing, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, warned of unfathomable consequences that await the United States and Taiwan for highest-ranking American official Pelosi’s once-in-a-quarter-century visit turning a new page in the US-China rivalry. 

As the latter ramped up its military posture, the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) nations urged China and the US to look for a peaceful resolution to the tensions simmering over US officials’ visit. "There is no justification to use a visit as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait. It is normal and routine for legislators from our countries to travel internationally," the G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement released on Aug 3. They also propelled caution that Beijing’s military activities risk destabilising the region.