Nancy Pelosi Diplomacy And China’s Fury

Nancy Pelosi is not the US Secretary of State. Neither is she the President of the United States. But this week, she charted her own foreign policy course, sent jitters to the White House, and annoyed China.

People’s Republic of China (PRC) hereinafter known as China, has always maintained that the Republic of China (ROC), hereinafter known as Taiwan is a breakaway region that would one day be reunited with PRC with force if necessary. Taiwan, a western style democracy, prefers to be more like Japan, a quiet economic power, not a geopolitical heavyweight like Beijing or Washington.

Pelosi (who got a lot of attention for standing up to former President Trump, tearing his State of the Union address paper after he dared to ignore her handshake and then impeaching him twice) has made her own stance known. That is, that the US will stand by Taiwan in any war China brings to reunify the two Chinas. The US officially recognizes only Beijing, but maintains very warm unofficial ties with Taipei, selling them weapons – a real balancing act.

But why this trip at this time, you may ask? Well, it might be that Speaker Pelosi feels she should show America’s resolve in order to deter China, as the Ukraine war rages on.

Maybe the move is to deter China from making a grab at Taiwan. I suspect she might have concluded that as President Nixon stated, one way to deter America’s rivals is for the US to act ‘unbalanced’ as if it doesn’t care if a nuclear war could break out. That should give the other side some pause (even though China has really rolled out the tanks with their war games on the Taiwan Strait in response).

Another part of my thinking is that Nancy Pelosi who is 82 used the Taiwan trip to burnish her legacy as a US stateswoman incase the Republicans come back to majority in the house and topple her.

Whatever it is, Ms Pelosi has made a statement that the United States and China could not ignore.