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Opinion | Why Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan Is Utterly Reckless


I have great respect for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. But if she continues her visit to Taiwan this week, against President Biden’s wishes, she will do something completely reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible.

Nothing good will come of it. Taiwan will not be safer or more prosperous as a result of this purely symbolic visit, and a lot of bad things can happen. These include a Chinese military response that could lead the United States into indirect conflicts with a nuclear-armed Russia and a nuclear-armed China at the same time.

And if you think our European allies – who are facing war with Russia over Ukraine – will join us if there is a US conflict with China over Taiwan, triggered. By this unnecessary visit, you are misinterpreting the world.

Let’s start with the indirect conflict with Russia, and how Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan now blurs that.

There are times in international relations when you need to keep an eye on awards. Today, the prize is clear: We must ensure that Ukraine can, at a minimum, defeat – and at most, vice versa – the gratuitous invasion of Vladimir Putin, which if successful will directly threaten the stability of the entire European Union.

To help create the greatest possibility that Ukraine could reverse Putin’s invasion, Biden and national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a series of very difficult meetings with the Chinese leadership, praying for begged Beijing not to get involved in the Ukraine conflict by providing military support to Russia – and especially now, as Putin’s arsenal has dwindled after five months of war.

Biden, according to a senior US official, personally told President Xi Jinping that if China went to war in Ukraine with Russia’s side, Beijing would risk access to two of the country’s most important export markets. them – the United States and the European Union. (China is one of the best countries in the world for drone production, which is exactly what Putin’s military needs most right now.)

American officials told me that China responded by not providing military aid to Putin – at a time when the US and NATO were providing intelligence support to Ukraine and a significant number of advanced weapons were causing the damage. serious damage to the country’s army. Russia, China’s ostensibly ally.

With all that in mind, why would the speaker of the House choose to visit Taiwan and deliberately provoke China now, having become the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich in 1997, when China is much weaker economically and militarily?

The timing couldn’t be worse. Dear reader: The Ukraine war is not over yet. And personally, American officials are more concerned with Ukraine’s leadership than they are allowing. There is deep suspicion between the White House and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – significantly more than has been reported.

And there’s a funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17, Zelensky Fired His country’s prosecutor general and head of domestic intelligence – the most significant shake-up in his government since the February invasion of Russia. It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have yet to see any reports that convincingly explain all that happened. It seems that we do not want to scrutinize the secrets of Kyiv for fear of what we might see, when we have invested so much in it. (More on the dangers of that day.)

Meanwhile, senior US officials maintain that Putin is quite well prepared to consider using small nuclear weapons against Ukraine if he sees his military facing certain defeat. .

In short, this Ukraine war is not over, not yet stable, there are no dangerous surprises that could break out any day. Yet in the midst of all this, will we risk a conflict with China over Taiwan, provoked by an arbitrary and frivolous visit by the speaker of the House of Representatives?

It’s Geopolitics 101 where you don’t wage a two-front war with two other superpowers at the same time.

Now, let’s move on to the possibility of an indirect conflict with China, and how Pelosi’s visit could trigger it.

According to Chinese news report, Mr. Xi told Biden in their phone call last week, alluding to US involvement in Taiwan affairs, such as Pelosi’s possible visit, “whoever plays with fire will Get a burn.”

Biden’s national security team made it clear to Pelosi, a longtime human rights campaigner in China, why she shouldn’t go to Taiwan now. But the president did not call her directly and ask her not to go, apparently worried that he would take a soft spot on China, leaving an opening for Republicans to attack him before midterms. .

It is such a measure of our political turmoil that a Democratic president cannot prevent a House Democratic speaker from engaging in a diplomatic activity that his entire national security team cannot afford. that – from the director of the CIA to the chairman of the Board of Directors – considers it unwise.

To be sure, there’s an argument that Biden should just call Mr. Xi a hoax, put Pelosi on the hilt and tell Mr. Xi that if he threatens Taiwan in any way, China will ” burned”.

That might work. It may even feel good for a day. It could also start World War III.

In my view, Taiwan should have asked Pelosi not to come at this time. I greatly admire Taiwan and the economy and democracy it has built since the end of World War II. I have visited Taiwan many times over the past 30 years and witnessed firsthand how much Taiwan has changed in that time – so much.

But one thing remains unchanged for Taiwan: Its geography!

Taiwan is still a tiny island, now with 23 million people, about 100 miles off the coast of the huge mainland China, with 1.4 billion people who claim Taiwan as part of the Chinese motherland. . Places that forget their geography will be in trouble.

Don’t confuse this with pacifism on my part. I believe it is in the important national interest of the United States to protect Taiwan’s democracy, in the event of an unprovoked Chinese invasion.

But if we are going to be in conflict with Beijing, at least let it be up to our timing and our problems. Our problems are China’s increasingly aggressive behavior on multiple fronts – from cyber intrusions to intellectual property theft to military exercises in the South China Sea.

That said, this is not the time to poke fun at China, especially considering this is a sensitive time in Chinese politics. Xi is preparing to lock in a extend indefinitely about his role as China’s leader at the 20th Communist Party Congress, scheduled for this fall. The Chinese Communist Party has always made it clear that the unification of Taiwan and mainland China is “historical questAnd since coming to power in 2012, Mr. Xi has steadfastly and recklessly emphasized his commitment to that mission with active military maneuvers around Taiwan.

By visiting, Pelosi will actually give Mr. Xi an opportunity to divert attention from his own failures – a great strategy is to try to stop the spread of Covid-19 by using lockdown. gates of China’s major cities, a giant real estate bubble. is currently deflationary and threatening a banking crisis and a mountain of immensity government debt The result has been Mr. Xi’s unbridled support for state-owned industries.

I really doubt that the current leadership of Taiwan, in their hearts, wants this visit by Pelosi right now. Anyone who has followed the cautious behavior of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, since her election in 2016, must be impressed by the consistent efforts. hers to protect Taiwan’s independence while not allowing China is an easy pretext for military action against Taiwan.

Alas, I’m afraid Xi’s growing consensus in China is that the Taiwan issue can only be resolved militarily, but China wants to do it on its own schedule. Our goal is to prevent China from such a military effort on OUR schedule – this is forever.

But the best way to do that is to bring Taiwan into what military analysts call a “hedgehog” – with so many missiles that China never wants to get its hands on it – while talking and doing as much as possible. as little as possible to provoke Chinese thinking. that it MUST lay hands on it now. Pursuing anything other than that balanced approach would be a terrible mistake, with enormous and unpredictable consequences.



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