Asia-Pacific, International Relations One Year Later: How Has China’s Military Pressure on Taiwan Changed Since Nancy Pelosi’s Visit?

It has been over one year since then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taipei to meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in early August 2022. To retaliate for the visit, Beijing initiated sanctions against Pelosi, other US officials on the trip, and Pelosi family members. However, the brunt of the response focused on Taiwan, which included military exercises, missile tests, sanctions, and import bans on over 100 Taiwanese goods. This article analyzes how the military dimensions of the cross-Strait status quo have changed in the year since Pelosi made her historic trip.

After Pelosi and her colleagues were safely out of Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) initiated joint air and naval live-fire exercises that included missile tests over Taiwan and in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as well as a simulation of a military blockade of the island. The drills occurred in six declared closure areas around Taiwan, with Chinese military aircraft and naval vessels dominating the Taiwan Strait throughout the exercises. The aircraft made regular median line crossings, essentially eliminating the tacit military demarcation line between Beijing and Taipei once and for all. Nearly 450 aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in August 2022 alone, the highest monthly total ever recorded. The second-highest recorded month for ADIZ activity was April 2023 (the month that Tsai met with current US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California), with 259 incursions. [1]

In the immediate aftermath of the exercises and ADIZ incursions, I argued that the post-Pelosi response would mark the beginning of a new phase in Chinese military pressure against Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait. I also predicted that this second phase of ADIZ incursions would be characterized by regular median line crossings, with less emphasis on flights into the southwestern ADIZ region near Pratas/Dongsha Island (東沙島).

After one year of post-Pelosi Chinese ADIZ incursions and military pressure against Taiwan, it is worth considering the patterns in PLA activity that have changed relative to the period before Pelosi’s visit—and to consider the near-term prospects for additional changes to the military balance and cross-Strait status quo in the lead-up to Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election.

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