Chinese President Xi Jinping asked his US counterpart, Joe Biden, in a telephone call on July 28 to stop US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from travelling to Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal has reported citing anonymous sources.
According to the sources, Biden refused to budge, telling Xi he had no power over Pelosi's travelling decisions since she was a representative of an independent branch of power as a House member. POTUS also cautioned the Chinese president against provocations and any coercive actions against her plane.
However, despite the president’s strong rejection of Xi’s demands, the White House was reportedly not internally content with Pelosi's plans to visit the island that Beijing considers its rightful territory.
US officials purportedly suspected that China was considering a military operation to seize the autonomous island. While they did not consider that Pelosi's refusal to fly there would change these plans, they were confident that her visit would effectively speed them up, sources claim. The officials reportedly pointed out the bad timing of the House speaker's visit, with Xi Jinping due to reaffirm his position as president for the third term.
Unyielding Speaker
An array of officials from the Department of Defense, Indo-Pacific Command and the office of the National Security Advisor were reportedly trying to convince Pelosi to abandon or delay her trip to Taiwan. However, she refused to listen to their arguments, later accusing the "smaller anonymous voices" within the administration of trying to thwart her visit by leaking information about it. The Washington Post's sources insist that it was not the administration that leaked the details, as they would have preferred the plans to remain secret.
Pelosi's trip "frustrated administration officials and deepened tensions" between the administration and the speaker. It also prompted a large-scale show of force by China, which launched military drills and several missiles in the waters around the island.
Regardless, the House speaker was adamant that her decision to go to Taiwan was correct despite putting further strain on already tense US-Sino relations.
"The support for preventing Taiwan from being isolated and preserving the status quo is bipartisan and bicameral. This respect for Taiwan and rejection of violence is shared by the president as witnessed by his recent statements," Pelosi commented on her visit.