Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, has arrived in Taiwan, on a visit that has enraged China which claims the self-governing island as its own territory.
Pelosi’s arrival in Taipei late on Tuesday risks triggering a major crisis between China and the US, which does not officially recognise Taiwan as an independent state but is still required by US law to provide its government with the means to defend itself.
China had threatened “serious consequences” if Pelosi – the highest ranking US official to travel to Taiwan in 25 years – went ahead with her visit.
“The US side will bear the responsibility and pay the price for undermining China’s sovereign security interests,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
On Tuesday morning, Chinese warships and aircraft repeatedly edged into the median line of the Taiwan Strait, according to reports. Four US naval ships, including one aircraft carrier, were deployed in the waters east of Taiwan before Pelosi’s arrival.
Analysts in Taiwan said Beijing’s reactions to the visit are likely to be both short and long-term.
“We can expect China to escalate its existing military activity, such as live-fire exercises, but calibrated in a way so as not to enter direct conflict with either Taiwan or the United States,” James Lee, a researcher of US-Taiwan relations at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, told Al Jazeera.
“Chinese warships and fighters may cross over the median line in response to the visit, but they are unlikely to enter Taiwan’s national airspace or its territorial waters, as there is too high a risk of engaging Taiwanese air force fighters,” Lee said.
Wen-ti Sung, an expert at the Australian Centre on China in the World at Australian National University, told Al Jazeera that China’s People’s Liberation Army will likely use live-fire exercises and missile tests to demonstrate strength to its domestic audience in response to the Pelosi visit.
“The message China intends to send is that it has the ‘ability’ to respond, but whether it currently has the ‘intention’ to respond or not, is a different matter. China will argue that it will take action at a timing of its own choosing, rather than reacting or dancing to the tune of external ‘provocations’,” Sung said.
China may also continue to up the ante after Pelosi leaves.
“An escalation now could be a one-off event, but it may also become part of a sustained pattern of aggression,” Ross Feingold, a Taipei-based political analyst and lawyer, told Al Jazeera.
Chinese incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ), which have increased in both frequency and regularity in recent years, were an example of such an escalation, he said.
“This could be a real strain on Taiwan’s defence resources and the men and women who serve in the military going forward,” Feingold said.
