I have a lot of respect for the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. But if she does make a visit to Taiwan this week, against President Joe Biden’s wishes, she will be doing something totally 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 many bad things could happen. Among these is a Chinese military response that could result in the US plunging into indirect and simultaneous conflicts with Russia and China, both possessing nuclear weapons.
And if you think our European allies — who are facing an existential war with Russia over Ukraine — will join us if there is a US-China conflict over Taiwan, triggered by this unnecessary visit, you are misinterpreting it. the world.​
Let’s start with the indirect conflict with Russia and how Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan now hangs over him.
There are times in international relations when you have to keep an eye on the prize. Today, that prize is crystal clear: we must ensure that Ukraine is capable, at the very least, of mitigating – and, at the most, reversing – Vladimir Putin’s invasion, which, if successful, will pose a direct threat to the stability of the entire country. the European Union.
To help create the greatest possibility for Ukraine to reverse Putin’s invasion, Biden and his national security adviser Jake Sullivan held a series of very difficult meetings with the Chinese leadership, begging Beijing not to enter the Ukrainian conflict by providing military assistance to Russia – particularly now, when Putin’s arsenal has been dwarfed by five months of oppressive warfare.
Biden, according to a senior US official, personally told Xi Jinping that if China were to enter the Ukraine War on Russia’s side, it would be jeopardizing access to its two most important export markets – the United States and the European Union. (China is one of the best countries in the world for making drones, which are exactly what Putin’s troops need most right now.)
By all indications, US officials told me, China responded by not providing military aid to Putin — at a time when the US and NATO are giving Ukraine a significant number of advanced weapons and intelligence support that have done serious damage to the forces. Armed Forces of Russia, a declared ally of China.
Given all this, why would the Speaker of the House choose to visit Taiwan and deliberately provoke China now, becoming the most senior US official to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich in 1997, when China was much weaker economically and militarily?
The timing couldn’t be worse. Dear reader: The War in Ukraine is not over. And US officials in particular are far more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they let on. There is deep distrust between the White House and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – considerably greater than has been reported.
And there are funny things happening in Kiev. On July 17, Zelensky sacked his country’s justice minister and the head of its domestic intelligence agency — the most significant change in his government since the Russian invasion in February. It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I haven’t seen any reports that convincingly explain what happened. It’s as if we don’t want to look too much under the surface in Kiev for fear of seeing corruption or craziness, since we’ve invested so much there. (More on the dangers of that another day.)
Meanwhile, US officials still believe Putin is quite prepared to consider using a small nuclear weapon against Ukraine if he sees his army facing certain defeat.
In short, this war in Ukraine is NOT over, it is NOT stable, it is NOT without dangerous surprises that could arise on any given day. In the midst of all this, are we going to risk a conflict with China over Taiwan, sparked by an arbitrary and frivolous visit by the Speaker of the House?
It is the first lesson in geopolitics that one does not seek a two-front war with the other two superpowers at the same time.
Now, let’s turn to the potential for indirect conflict with China and how Pelosi’s visit could trigger it. According to Chinese reports, Xi told Biden in his phone call last week, referring to US involvement in Taiwan affairs – such as a possible visit by Pelosi – that “whoever plays with fire will get burned”.
Biden’s national security team made it clear to Pelosi, a former human rights advocate in China, why she shouldn’t go to Taiwan now. But the president didn’t call her directly to ask her not to go, apparently worried that he might appear soft on China, leaving an opening for Republicans to attack him ahead of the election.
It is a measure of our political dysfunction that a Democratic president cannot prevent a Democratic Speaker of the House from engaging in a diplomatic maneuver that his entire national security team – from the CIA director to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – considers reckless.
No doubt there’s the argument that Biden should just call Xi’s bluff, support Pelosi to the fullest, and tell Xi that if he threatens Taiwan in any way, it’s China that “will be burned.” That might work. It might even look good for a day. It can also start World War III.
In my opinion, Taiwan should have asked Pelosi not to go at this point. I really admire Taiwan and the economy and democracy it has built up since the end of World War II. I have visited Taiwan countless times over the past 30 years and have personally witnessed how much has changed in that time – a lot.
But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in Taiwan: its geography!
It is still a small island nation, now with 23 million people, about 160 kilometers off the coast of a gigantic mainland China with 1.4 billion people who claim Taiwan as part of their Chinese homeland. Countries that forget their geography get into trouble.
Don’t confuse this with pacifism on my part. I believe it is a vital US national interest to defend Taiwan’s democracy in the event of an unprovoked Chinese invasion. But if we are going to come into conflict with Beijing, at least let it be in our time and for our problems. Our problems are China’s increasingly aggressive behavior on a wide range of fronts – from cyber-intrusions to intellectual property theft and military maneuvers in the South China Sea.
That said, this is not the time to poke at China, especially considering the delicate timing of Chinese politics. Xi is on the verge of securing an indefinite extension of his role as China’s leader at the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, scheduled for this autumn. The party has always made it clear that the reunification of Taiwan and mainland China is its “historic task”, and since coming to power in 2012, Xi has consistently and impulsively emphasized his commitment to that task, carrying out aggressive military maneuvers in around Taiwan.
If he makes the visit, Pelosi will indeed give Xi an opportunity to deflect attention from his own failures — the blind strategy of trying to stop the spread of Covid-19 using lockdowns in major cities in China, a massive housing bubble that is now deflating. and threatens a banking crisis and a huge mountain of domestic debt resulting from Xi’s unrestricted support for state-owned industries.
I seriously doubt that the current Taiwan leadership, in their hearts, wants this visit from Pelosi right now. Anyone who has followed the cautious behavior of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party since her election in 2016 should be impressed by her consistent efforts to defend Taiwan’s independence without giving China an easy excuse for military action against the island.
Unfortunately, I fear that the growing consensus in Xi’s China is that the Taiwan issue can only be resolved militarily, but Beijing wants to do it in its own time. Our aim must be to dissuade China from such a military enterprise in OUR time – which is forever.
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But the best way to do that is to arm Taiwan with what military analysts call a “hedgehog” – a country with so many missiles that China would never want to get its hands on it – while saying and doing as little as possible to provoke China. thinking you MUST get your hands on him now. To pursue anything other than this balanced approach would be a terrible mistake, with far-reaching and unpredictable consequences.
