Nancy Pelosi's Reckless Trip to Taiwan
Pelosi single-handedly caused tensions between China and Taiwan to increase significantly, all in an attempt to gain political points from her arrogant moral grandstanding.
Earlier this week, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), along with a congressional delegation, took a trip to Asia where she visited Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. While there had been plenty of discussion about Pelosi visiting Taiwan in the weeks leading up to the trip, it wasn’t confirmed until the very last minute. She arrived at the island nation on Tuesday and stirred up quite a bit of controversy in the process.
In the weeks preceding Pelosi’s trip, the Chinese government had warned against her visiting Taiwan several times. Even though Taiwan is self-governed, China views the island as its territory and official U.S. policy has reflected that since 1979. (For anyone who’s interested, I briefly covered the history of the relationship between China and Taiwan in an article I wrote last year. For a more detailed history, I would recommend reading this article by David Stockman at Antiwar.com.)
Pelosi, who as the Speaker of the House is third in line for the presidency, is the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. That is why the trip was viewed by the Chinese government as a major break in the U.S.’s one-China policy, despite the Biden administration as well as Pelosi herself insisting that that is not the case.
As journalist Caitlin Johnstone pointed out recently, China’s warnings against Pelosi’s trip sound far too familiar, echoing warnings issued by Russia against NATO’s encroachment on its borders during the months leading up to the current Russian invasion of Ukraine. As Johnstone put it:
China has been using this same language since news first broke about Pelosi's planned trip, with Chinese state media Global Times saying last week that "visiting Taiwan is definitely a red line that Pelosi must never cross."
During the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was issuing similar warnings using the same phrase. Putin warned over and over again that the west was taking Moscow's "red lines" on Ukrainian neutrality too lightly, and Washington brazenly dismissed those warnings while continuing to float the possibility of future NATO membership for Ukraine.
That isn’t to say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is justified, just that the U.S. government seemed to knowingly stoke that tension despite clear warnings that it would lead to the current situation. Pelosi quite literally going out of her way this week to visit Taiwan despite similar warnings from China shows that our leaders are unlikely to learn their lesson from the past several months of the Russia-Ukraine war. (Shocker)
While China’s stance on Pelosi’s trip had remained constant, the response she got in the States was somewhat mixed. Biden himself stated that the military thought that the trip was “not a good idea” yet refused to really try to convince Pelosi not to go, claiming that he had no authority to do so.
Pelosi does have the freedom to make her own decisions, but the idea that Biden and other officials within his administration had no ability to deter her just simply isn’t true. Had they made more of an attempt to talk her out of it there’s a good chance it would’ve worked, but no meaningful attempts were made.
Despite the President appearing to have had some reservations about the trip, many members of Congress, including Republicans, openly backed the idea over the last several weeks. And not long after Pelosi’s plane touched down in Taiwan, a group of 26 Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), issued a statement supporting her decision to visit the island.
Apparently, heightening tensions with China has quite the level of bipartisan support. Whether it’s with China or Russia, trying to start World War Three appears to be rather popular on Capitol Hill.
One of the arguments in favor of Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan that many public figures used was that heeding China’s warnings and canceling the trip would’ve made us appear weak and that it also would’ve been seen as placating the Chinese government. That line of thinking ignores America’s longstanding policy on Taiwan, however, which is that we have no formal diplomatic relations with the island nation and that we do not officially support Taiwan’s independence.
A high-ranking U.S. politician visiting the island and meeting with its leaders can understandably be seen as a sign of a potential shift in that policy, and we wouldn’t have had to “placate” the Chinese government if Pelosi never decided to take such an irresponsibly provocative trip in the first place.
It’s not as if U.S.-China relations were doing well before this week, either. In fact, they have been at a low point for several years now. Former President Donald Trump spent his four years in office escalating tensions with China, most notably with his trade war and various tariffs on Chinese goods.
President Joe Biden has continued many of his predecessors’ policies, and has publicly stated three separate times that the U.S. will defend Taiwan should China invade the island. White House officials walked back those statements each time, but the sitting president reiterating that controversial stance more than once cannot bode well for the future of our relationship with China.
When you consider how high tensions between the U.S. and China already were, it makes Pelosi’s decision to visit Taiwan all the more reckless, and there were real-world consequences from her doing so. As Dave Decamp recently reported for Antiwar.com:
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is closing off six areas around Taiwan from Thursday to Sunday and is expected to hold drills, including live-fire exercises, in some areas within 12 miles of the island.
…
Both Chinese and American analysts believe that the unprecedented military exercises could become routine, a consequence of Pelosi’s provocative visit.
China also imposed sanctions on Taiwan because of Pelosi, including a ban on the export of natural sand, and a halt on imports of fish and fruit products from the island.
Average people within Taiwan will bear the brunt of the current sanctions being imposed due to Nancy Pelosi's visit, which will cause problems for those people that she likely never even considered. Meanwhile, nothing about China’s response will affect her in any way whatsoever.
Pelosi single-handedly caused tensions between China and Taiwan to increase significantly, all in an attempt to gain political points from her arrogant moral grandstanding. What makes this situation even more frustrating is that, given the amount of bipartisan support she received, her attempt at gaining political capital from this trip appears to have been a success, even with the incoherent word salad that she spewed during her time on the island.
I should clarify that I personally support Taiwan’s independence if that is what the majority of Taiwanese citizens desire. However, even with that being the case, I am adamantly opposed to the U.S. government intervening in that decision one way or the other, especially considering the fact that China is a nuclear-armed nation.
U.S. intervention consistently tends to cause more harm than good, and even if that wasn’t so, there are simply too many problems within our own country that should take priority over other issues around the globe. Our politicians should not be stoking tension by unnecessarily visiting other countries while our own nation is struggling, particularly when doing so could have disastrous results not just for U.S. citizens but for the world as a whole.
To sum up my feelings about Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, I’ll once again quote the great Caitlin Johnstone:
The world is a worse place now than it was before Pelosi's plane touched down. Less safe, less wealthy, less kind, and more frightening. Not one ordinary person has benefitted from her insanely hawkish provocation made in her final years on this earth, especially not the people of Taiwan.
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Great article, I've been wanting to write about it myself but havn't had the time. I personally literally dont care if PRC conquers Taiwan, I simply don't want WW3, or, if it happens, would prefer China manages to stay uninvolved. We're seriously ruled by the most incompetently reckless dementia patients of all time. I mean she's out there talking about our president Ben Franklin and digging a hole to China at the beach.