China warns US will 'pay the price' if Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan

The United States will pay the price if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan during her Asia trip China warned Tuesday as tensions between the two superpowers continued to soarThe prospect of Pelosi going to Taipei which would be the highestprofile visit by an elected US official in 25 years has triggered increasingly bellicose warnings from Beijing that have set the region on edgePelosi 82 has yet to officially confirm whether Taiwan is part of an ongoing Asia tour but US and Taiwanese media have reported it will happenThe US side will bear the responsibility and pay the price for undermining Chinas sovereign security interests foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing in BeijingChinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the US breach of faith on the Taiwan issue is despicable in comments published on his ministrys website Tuesday that did not specifically mention PelosiBeijing considers selfruled democratic Taiwan its territory and has vowed to one day seize the island by force if necessaryIt tries to keep Taiwan isolated on the world stage and opposes countries having official exchanges with itIn a call with US President Joe Biden last week Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the United States against playing with fire on TaiwanWhile the Biden administration is understood to be opposed to a Taiwan stop White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Pelosi was entitled to go where she pleasedThere is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with longstanding US policies into some sort of crisis he told reportersThe last House Speaker to visit Taiwan was Newt Gingrich in 1997Kirby cited intelligence that China was preparing possible military provocationsHe said Pelosi was travelling on a military aircraft and that while Washington did not fear a direct attack it raises the stakes of a miscalculationKirby reiterated however that US policy was unchanged toward TaiwanThis means support for its selfruling government while diplomatically recognising Beijing over Taipei and opposing a formal independence declaration by Taiwan or a forceful takeover by ChinaMeanwhile Moscow said it was absolutely in solidarity with China calling the prospect of a Pelosi visit pure provocationChina has refused to condemn Russias invasion of Ukraine and has been accused of providing diplomatic cover for the Kremlin by blasting Western sanctions and arms sales to Kyiv All eyes on Taiwan Pelosi arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday where she met Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri and Foreign Minister Saifuddin AbdullahPress access around Pelosi has been tightly restricted and limited to a handful of short statements confirming meetings with Malaysian and Singaporean officialsThe remainder of her itinerary includes stops in South Korea and Japan but the prospect of a Taiwan trip has dominated attentionTaipei has kept silent on whether they expect to roll out the red carpetMultiple Taiwanese media outlets carried comments from deputy parliament speaker Tsai Chichang saying Pelosi was very likely to visit in the coming daysAnd Taiwans Liberty Times newspaper cited unnamed sources as saying she would land Tuesday night then meet President Tsai Ingwen the next day before departing in the afternoonOn Tuesday evening Taiwans presidential office said its website was briefly offline for 20 minutes because of a DDoS attack that was halted It was not clear why but the office said it would up its monitoring in the face of hybrid information warfare by external forces Seek to punish Taiwan The island nations 23 million people have long lived with the possibility of an invasion but that threat has intensified under Xi Chinas most assertive leader in a generationThe islands military on Tuesday said it was determined to defend it against increased threats by China over the potential Pelosi visitThe probability of war or a serious incident is low tweeted Bonnie Glaser director of the Asia programme at the USbased German Marshall Fund think tankBut the probability that China will take a series of military economic and diplomatic actions to show strength amp resolve is not insignificant she addedLikely it will seek to punish Taiwan in myriad waysTaipeis Council of Agriculture said on Tuesday that China had suspended the import of some Taiwanese goods including some fishery products tea and honey The council said China cited regulatory breachesPelosis potential visit has been preceded by a flurry of military activity across the region that highlights how combustible the issue of Taiwan isLast week both Taiwan and China held livefire drillsThe US has maintained a navy presence in the region including the usually Japanbased aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan which sailed through the South China Sea last weekThe Seventh Fleets official Twitter reported Tuesday that the aircraft carrier was now in the Philippine Sea