Pelosi’s roundabout flight to Taiwan shows China’s long reach

Flight-tracking data show that the aircraft carrying Pelosi avoided flying over the contested South China Sea. - AFP

TAIPEI (Bloomberg): The path of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s US military plane to Taiwan was notable for how carefully it avoided the South China Sea.

The closely watched trip was one of the most controversial official US visits in recent memory, and her route underscored a remarkable degree of caution as Washington tries to avoid further angering Beijing and triggering unintended consequences.

Flight-tracking data show that the aircraft carrying Pelosi, which landed in Taipei shortly before 11pm local time on Tuesday (Aug 2), avoided flying over the contested South China Sea.

Instead of traveling northeast from Kuala Lumpur directly across the South China Sea - a journey that might have brought her jet close to Chinese military facilities built on reclaimed land on islets and reefs including in the Spratly Islands - Pelosi’s plane flew southeast over the Indonesia part of Kalimantan, or Borneo, before turning north and then to the east of the Philippines, according to imagery provided by Flightradar24.

"I imagine the flight path will take extra caution into considerations,” said Meia Nouwens, a senior fellow for Chinese defense policy and military modernisation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

"Of concern may have been the militarisation of the three largest Chinese man-made islands in the Spratlys, which are equipped with permanent defense facilities and weaponry.”

Pelosi’s visit to democratically ruled Taiwan, which is claimed by China, has heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing.

As she arrived in Taiwan, China announced it would stage a series of military drills including "long-range live firing” near Taiwan starting as soon as Tuesday evening, as well as more drills encircling the island on Aug 4.

It reflected China’s strong condemnation of the visit by the highest-ranking US elected official in 25 years.

A lot has changed since then, with China growing in economic might and becoming more assertive on the world stage.

In 2015, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter didn’t equivocate in telling China publicly that "the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, as we do around the world, and the South China Sea will not be an exception.”

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated to probably "the lowest moment” since former President Richard Nixon’s landmark visit to China in 1972, in the view of the US envoy to Beijing.

Biden administration officials have played down any notion that they had control over the visit of an official in a coequal branch of the US government, saying they were doing nothing to disrupt the sensitive status quo on the status of Taiwan.