O Congresso americano se intromete no delicado equlíbrio Taiwan-EUA-China - Olivier Knox (WP)

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The big idea

China committee chair makes secret trip to Taiwan The Daily 202, The Washington Post, Feb 22, 2023   By Olivier Knox with research by Caroline Anders

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) nominates Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to be speaker on the House floor on Jan. 4,. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Let’s talk about secret overseas travel with important national security dimensions. No, this is not about President Biden’s cloak-and-dagger visit to Ukraine. It’s about Rep. Mike Gallagher’s four-day trip to Taiwan over the long weekend, which he did not publicize before going or draw attention to by talking to reporters once there. And draw attention it would have. The Wisconsin Republican, a counterintelligence officer who did two tours in Iraq as part of a seven-year stretch of active duty in the Marines, chairs the House’s brand new committee on China. My colleague Ellen Nakashima spoke with Gallagher upon his return. She has the scoop on:

What he says most worries officials on the democratically self-governed island (a $19 billion backlog in American weapons deliveries, notably Harpoon anti-ship missiles and F-16 fighter jets. Those systems may not arrive “for years,” Ellen noted. How Gallagher heard from “almost every Taiwanese official” he met that Russia’s expanded war in Ukraine, now nearly a year old, was “a wake-up call” about the need to stockpile advanced weapons. How the trip fits into what he sees as the broader mission of the new committee, which will hold its first hearing on Feb. 28 (he wants to impress upon Americans the need “to arm Taiwan to the teeth to avoid a war,” Gallagher told her.)

A MCCARTHY TRIP?

The mere fact of the trip is interesting. So is the secrecy. When then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) traveled to Taiwan in August, Biden confirmed the trip before it was announced, angering China, and declared the Pentagon opposed it. Both steps made it harder for her to go.

Pelosi went anyway, becoming the most senior U.S. government official to visit in a quarter century. Once she had left, China fired ballistic missiles near Taiwan and sent warships and fighters near the island to conduct what it called training exercises. Ellen reported this interesting nugget: “Gallagher, well aware of the furor caused by Pelosi’s visit, said he deliberately kept his own visit quiet to have more productive meetings. A senior U.S. defense official made a visit at the same time, which leaked and was front-page news in Taiwan.” Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is expected to make his own visit to Taiwan this year, though his office has not announced definite plans, much less a timeline. China has warned him not to do it. There’s no reason to think he’ll back down.

“I don’t know of any active plans by Speaker McCarthy to go. If he wants to go, he certainly can,” Gallagher told Ellen. China doesn’t get a “veto” over congressional travel, he added.

“Gallagher said he intends to hold a select committee hearing in Taiwan— hopefully before summer and then report back to McCarthy on its findings. That would better inform the speaker’s plans, and he and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) could visit possibly after Taiwan’s next presidential election in early 2024,” Ellen reported. (The most provocative time for a McCarthy visit this year would probably be early March, when China’s National People’s Congress holds its annual session, because it would look like a slap in the face to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.)

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT

Gallagher wasn’t the only member of Congress in Taiwan. Huizhong Wu of the Associated Press reported on another delegation, which included Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Tony Gonzales (R-Tex.), Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) and Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) Support for Taiwan has deep, decades-long bipartisan roots. “We need to be moving heaven and earth to arm Taiwan to the teeth to avoid a war,” Gallagher told Ellen. “Nobody knows if and when Xi Jinping wakes up and decides to do this but all the more reason to put in place a denial posture as quickly as possible.”