As I see itNancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit: Singapore and Malaysia deserve to be more than a sideshow to US-China drama

Name: Mainland China conducts military live-fire drills as tensions soar over Pelosi visit to Taiwan
Uploaded: 2022-08-05T00:30:21.000Z
Duration: 3 min 35 s
Description: Mainland China conducts military live-fire drills as tensions soar over Pelosi visit to Taiwan

Asean members like Singapore and Malaysia shouldn’t be used as an opening act for deliberately provocative Asia tours by big-time American politicians

While the region does welcome increased US engagement and investment, it may well tire of provocations that are shrouded in the guise of diplomacy

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A billboard welcoming US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan is seen in Taipei on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Bhavan Jaipragas

Published: 8:30am, 5 Aug 2022

When the dust finally settles after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial Asia tour, few are likely to remember in great detail the Singapore and Malaysia legs of her five-stop trip.

From her arrival in Singapore on Monday through her visit to Malaysia the next day, much of the media and commentariat were already laser-focused on whether she would actually go through with plans to visit Taiwan.

Pelosi’s office and the two Southeast Asian governments released brief readouts after the meetings, but these were mainly parsed for indications of whether cross-strait tensions had cast a shadow over talks.

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Mainland China conducts military live-fire drills as tensions soar over Pelosi visit to Taiwan

A slight delay in Malaysia’s release of statements and images of Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s working lunch with Pelosi on Tuesday afternoon prompted questions of whether Kuala Lumpur was deliberately downplaying her visit to mollify Beijing.

Of course this was not the case. Ismail Sabri in a statement released that same evening lauded the strong ties between the two sides and noted that the US was the biggest investor in his country’s economy.

In Singapore, Pelosi’s jam-packed schedule comprised meetings with six top officials and spanned discussions on topics from security to the economy to climate change. The exchanges highlighted expansive ties that stand on their own merits.

I can’t speak for either government, but as an observer of their foreign policy I do think Malaysia and Singapore – and indeed much of the region – would have hoped a visit by the congressional delegation Pelosi led was not overshadowed by its Taiwan stop.