Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are on edge after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan this week—and some say they are disappointed in what they describe as the White House’s lackluster response.
The Department of Defense and State Department gave a classified briefing to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Monday evening, and, according to Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-WY) recollection, senators from both parties expressed concern that the Biden administration didn’t more full-heartedly back up Pelosi when China started issuing threats.
“Members were very clear—from both parties—with the White House and the administration as to our thoughts on the wisdom of Speaker Pelosi’s trip,” Barrasso told The Daily Beast. “The White House should have supported the Speaker of the House when the threats were made about the Speaker of the House. I thought the White House showed significant weakness by saying, well, we don’t know, as opposed to saying this is the Speaker of the House of the United States she’ll go if she decides to go.”
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Ahead of the trip, the White House had made it abundantly clear that Pelosi’s visit could lead to a flare-up in tensions—so much so that President Joe Biden himself said it was “not a good idea.”
Biden sought to distance himself from the visit, and warned Chinese President Xi Jinping in a phone call last week that Pelosi would make a decision about the trip, not Biden, according to White House National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby.
As to whether Xi has an understanding of the fact that Biden can’t tell Pelosi what to do, though, Sen. Angus King (I-ME), a member of the Senate Committees on Intelligence and Armed Services, said he wasn’t so sure.
“President Biden can’t tell the Speaker of the House what to do. I bet he wishes he could sometimes,” King said.
Many lawmakers were also less than enthusiastic about the Speaker’s travel plans.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said Tuesday he thought Pelosi’s trip was not a great idea, adding that the focus ought to be on Ukraine issues right now.
“I think her trip is ill advised,” Romney said.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he had concerns China might escalate in response to the trip.
“I'm always concerned about the Chinese Communists escalating against us. They are an evil regime,” Cruz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said.
Some Democrats, too, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, were concerned about Pelosi’s trip and a potentially dangerous response from China.
“I have concerns that China will use this as an opportunity to basically heighten the tensions there,” Duckworth told The Daily Beast. “And I hope that they don’t.”
“I'm worried about what Xi’s intentions are,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of both the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees.
China announced military exercises and threatened a forceful response as soon as rumors first emerged about Pelosi visiting Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory. The United States acknowledges China’s position, but doesn’t recognize China’s claim.
And while members of Congress have been visiting Taiwan for decades, the hostile rhetoric coming from Beijing isn’t sitting well on Capitol Hill. China was raging about Pelosi before she even arrived. Just as she landed in Taiwan, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the visit “seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“Those who play with fire will perish by it,” the ministry said. “China will definitely take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity in response to the U.S. Speaker's visit.”
Pelosi’s fellow lawmakers aren’t the only ones uneasy about China’s recent bellicose warnings. The White House’s Kirby warned that the people of Taiwan might be at risk given China’s threats.
“When you talk about or you threaten these kinds of potential operations, military operations... and missile launches… what that does is it does increase the risk of miscalculation… which could lead to unintended consequences,” Kirby told reporters Monday. “That’s where the risk comes in.”
Kirby didn’t detail what those consequences could be.
Following Monday’s briefing from the Pentagon and the State Department, Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) told The Daily Beast he thinks Taiwan still needs a lot of help to successfully deter China from attacking.
“We’ve made important commitments to the Taiwanese with respect to training their personnel and ensuring they have the wherewithal to deter [China],” Young, who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, told The Daily Beast. “They have to become a porcupine.”
Senators are currently working to address concerns about whether Taiwan is capable of thwarting a Chinese attack in the coming days. A proposal from Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that would increase security assistance to Taiwan and expand access to arms meant to deter China’s military is slated for consideration in the Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.
That multi-billion dollar aid proposal might be key to Taiwan in the coming years; China’s response to Pelosi’s visit will not be imminent, but rather could cause China to ratchet up tensions longer term, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast.
“I think the primary response you're gonna see from the Chinese is gonna be over an extended period of time after the visit,” Rubio told The Daily Beast. “I imagine they’ll ramp up.”
And although China’s rhetoric has escalated in recent days, any further military escalation in the meantime from China would be totally out of place given the visit was quite routine, according to Kaine.
It “would be entirely unnecessary,” Kaine said. “It would be a real window into Chinese insecurity if they decide to do that.”
