Even if Nancy Pelosi’s stunt in visiting Taiwan doesn’t trigger war with China, the New York Times reported on August 3rd that it seriously risks undermining the Biden Administration’s efforts to protect its allies in Asia. We don’t object to the Biden Administration protecting its allies in NATO and in Asia. We do object to the kind of provocations they have engaged in with regards to China and Taiwan, which open the door to someone like the Speaker of the House harboring delusions that she is the Commander in Chief.
Experts that the Times talked to note that it was poor judgement on Speaker Pelosi’s part because it allowed China to showcase their military might. American allies were not consulted. For instance, Penny Wong, Foreign Minister of Australia, one of America’s strongest allies in the Pacific, was quoted as saying in the Times, “All parties should consider how they best contribute to deescalating the current tensions, and we all want peace and stability in the Taiwan Straight.”
Good luck with that. China has already announced military exercises in the area, which could be a precursor to an invasion. Even if they are not, a misunderstanding or miscalculation could turn an already tense situation into a shooting war. Or some hotheaded individual that wants to see the US and China at war over Taiwan.
Even Japan, which is totally onboard with the US protecting Taiwan, was not onboard with Pelosi’s political stunt. As quoted in the Times, Ryo Sahashi, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo, said that the key was to keep the region stable so that the US and Japan can enhance their security partnership with Taiwan.
Not that it matters to the Neocons who have taken over at Daily Kos. Notwithstanding Joe Biden’s plan to stick it to the Russians by escalating the war between it and Ukraine, they were fawning over Speaker Pelosi’s visit. Here, at last, was the Democrats’ answer to the Republicans posturing as being tough on defense. Let us only hope that this doesn’t cost thousands or millions of lives. They never bothered to consider that the worst case scenario would involve dragging the US into a two front war with Russia and China, one that they cannot win. Germany was regarded as the world’s strongest military during World War II, but even they couldn’t win a two front war.
Australia has done the sensible thing with China, ending a two year diplomatic freeze and has gone out of their way to say that China is not an enemy. They have been increasing trade. All this will do is undermine the hard work that America’s allies are doing to ease tensions. In Australia, the criticism of Pelosi’s visit is unanimous, while for them, they see Joe Biden as a weak leader, given that he either could not or would not persuade Speaker Pelosi to cancel.
Or maybe the President didn’t want her to cancel. Maybe he wants to lure China into a protracted war with Taiwan, which would double the profits of the Military Industrial Complex while making him look tough on defense. This would be par for the course for US foreign policy, given that they lured Russia into a protracted conflict in Afghanistan in 1979 and in Ukraine this year.
Of course, gas and oil prices would skyrocket, as would everything else. Even if it didn’t turn into a shooting war between the US and China. The supply chain issues that would result would dwarf the ones that were created by the COVID pandemic. Good luck getting anything we need or want at the store. There is a very real risk that the economy would enter into a depression, since spending would drop to a standstill.
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