General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping’s internal civil war against his party rivals in the build-up to the 20th Party Congress—now likely to occur in November 2022—took on a new dimension with the visit to Taipei on Aug. 2–3, 2022, of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
The strong reaction by Xi’s officials to the visit indicated the level of uncertainty that the Xi camp was apparently feeling about the bid by Xi to be reelected for an unprecedented third term as General Secretary of the Party. His bid had, a year earlier, been seen as a certainty by many observers, but domestic chaos, mainly over economic issues—China is in major decline—empowered Xi’s less Maoist opponents within the CCP.
It cannot be stressed how precarious and important this current “civil war” for dominance of the CCP is to both Xi Jinping, to the Chinese population, and to the long-term strategic posture of mainland China—even to the extent of whether it creates a tipping point in the survival of the CCP. It is, at the very least until the national congress, an extremely unstable situation, and Xi, increasingly embattled, could be willing to take major risks to secure his party leadership.
Pelosi’s Taipei visit, leading a Congressional delegation, was a direct challenge to Xi, who had increasingly been attempting to constrain U.S. support for, and contact with, the Taiwanese government in Taipei. Xi and his officials had been warning of “dire consequences” for pursuing relations with Taiwan even at levels that had been normal a few decades earlier. Xi Jinping’s so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy” since 2012 has been aimed at gradually removing all normal international contacts and relations with Taiwan.
Xi’s threats certainly influenced many in Washington, with President Joe Biden (like Pelosi, a Democrat), Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and even Republican officials saying that the visit was unnecessarily provocative of the Xi administration. That hesitant response was seen as encouragement for the Xi team to step up its pressures. However, it failed to take into account that Biden could not dictate terms to Pelosi.
Initial responses included live-fire exercises by the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command near northeastern and southwestern Taiwan on Aug. 4, 2022, just after Pelosi had left Taipei for Seoul, South Korea. The People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) on about Aug. 1, 2022, also put its two aircraft carriers—the Liaoning and Shandong—to sea from their respective ports in Qingdao and Sanya. The live-fire exercises, which had clearly been prepared over recent months (i.e., not specifically in response to Pelosi’s visit), included firing live missiles into the sea adjacent to the Republic of China’s (i.e., Taiwan-owned) islands of Kinmen, Wuqiu, and Dongyin, in the Taiwan Strait, just off the mainland Chinese Fujian Province.
Pelosi’s was the first visit to Taipei, capital of the Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan), by a U.S. House Speaker—the third-ranking official in the United States—since the visit there by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich 25 years earlier.
Meanwhile, PRC and U.S. set-piece escalations began around the visit. The USS Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group had been operating in the South China Sea, and was moved to the Philippines Sea off the east coast of Luzon in the Philippines, south of Taiwan, while the USS Tripoli was South of Okinawa and could be covered by aircraft stationed at U.S. bases on Okinawa as well as by her own air complement. The amphibious assault ship USS America—based in Sasebo, Japan—was believed to be readying for sea.
- Pelosi had consistently, throughout her political career—and particularly since taking command of the House of Representatives Democrats in 2003—shown strong support for Taiwan.
- Pelosi, 82, has been ambiguous as to whether she would run again for Congress in the November 2022 midterm elections, but, given the likelihood that the Democrat Party would not win a majority of House seats at the election, her career as speaker of the House is almost guaranteed to be over. If she was ever to make an important stand to cap her career, this would be it.
- Pelosi’s reputation had been severely mauled during 2022 by allegations that her financier husband, Paul Pelosi, Sr., had engaged in insider trading by the commercial use of information acquired from her congressional role. The charges, while vehemently denied, had nonetheless damaged her credibility as Pelosi ran for what might be her final term in Congress. At the same time, Paul Pelosi emerged into the limelight by being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol after his Porsche was involved in a crash in Northern California in May 2022. To put it mildly, Pelosi wanted to focus on issues of greater substance in the run-up to the midterms and her probable retirement as speaker.
- There has been widespread concern in both the Democrat and Republican leaderships in Washington, that the Biden administration had been distracting serious strategic attention from the Indo-Pacific, in favor of supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia. This had already emboldened the PRC leadership during 2022, while also seriously draining U.S. military operational ordnance stocks. A major statement needed to be made to stop what was being seen as a Beijing juggernaut in the Indo-Pacific, and an unchallenged move by Xi Jinping to oppose his anti-Maoist rivals within the CCP. What was significant was that the Biden White House—often accused of being compromised by, or favorable to, the Xi administration—was unwilling to support any bold moves to slow Xi’s progress. Moreover, the Biden White House attempted to stop the Pelosi visit.
The PLA confirmed that a total of 11 Dongfeng (DF) (East Wind) ballistic missiles were fired into the waters north, south, and east of the island between 1356 and 1600 hours local time on Aug. 4. The live-fire exercises terminated without any further provocative moves, but there were questions as to whether further operations were planned. Certainly Xi’s “honor had not been satisfied,” given that neither Taiwan nor the United States had “paid a price” for the Pelosi visit. Given the proximity to the Fujian coastline, it is probable that the DFs fired were probably older Dongfeng 15 (CSS-6), short-range, solid-fuel ballistic missiles, of the type fired into ROC waters during the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis.
If, indeed, “honor has not been satisfied” as far as Xi is concerned—in other words, if he still feels that the Pelosi visit has humiliated him and that the PRC has been impotent to respond—there may be a temptation by Beijing to see whether an actual seizure could be achieved of some ROC-controlled islands: Kinmen (Quemoy) at the higher-risk end of the spectrum, along with the Matsu group farther north and close to the mainland and the Penghu group (closer to Taiwan itself); or possibly islands with the ROC’s smaller holdings in the South China Sea. CCP officials confirmed on Aug. 4, 2022, that further punitive actions would be taken by the PRC against the United States for the Pelosi visit.
Possibly, too, the PLA could be induced to a much safer demonstration of capability by firing newer DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles (with Maneuverable Reentry Vehicles: MaRVs), which would demonstrate capabilities against U.S. carriers; or longer-range ballistic missiles such as the Dongfeng DF-26C IRBM with a possible hypersonic glide warhead dropped into the Pacific close to the U.S. territory of Guam.
Xi minimizes his loss of face if the U.S. administration under Joe Biden continues to appear divided and conciliatory, and this would be critical to his race toward the 20th Party Congress. The United States faces increased risk (as does Taiwan) if it shows a united and implacable front against Xi. But, arguably, the United States, its allies, and Taiwan have no option but to do that. Vacillation and differences in Washington caused Xi to escalate short-term retaliatory actions after the Pelosi visit, but a strong approach to Beijing at this point would enable Xi’s rivals within the CCP to possibly control him.
