by Robert Spencer
The gamble is on.
After days of hemming and hawing amid Chinese threats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Smirmoff) is on her way to Taiwan: “She’s definitely coming,” said “a person familiar with the situation,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “The only variable is whether she spends the night in Taipei.” The People’s Republic, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, is livid; Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who said Monday that a Pelosi junket to Taiwan would be “a gross interference in China’s internal affairs,” warned that her going there would have “very serious developments and consequences. We would like to tell the United States once again that China is standing by, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will never sit idly by, and China will take resolute responses and strong countermeasures to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Zhao Lijian wasn’t alone. Hu Xijin, former chief editor of the Chinese Communist Party organ Global Times, issued yet another in a long series of warnings: “Let her go to Taiwan. But pray before departure: wish herself a safe journey and wish herself not be defined by history as a sinner who starts a spiral of escalation process expanding military frictions to a large-scale war in the Taiwan Strait.”
Meanwhile, Hu’s old paper, Global Times, recalled other occasions when China issued warnings and then went to war: “‘Don’t say we didn’t warn you!’ - a phrase that was used by the People’s Daily in 1962 before China was forced to fight the border war with India and ahead of the 1979 China-Vietnam War, was frequently mentioned during a forum held Friday by a high-level Chinese think tank, as analysts warned that open military options and comprehensive countermeasures ranging from the economy to diplomacy from China await if US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gambles with a visit to the Taiwan island during her Asia tour.”
It looks as if the gamble is on. And when he spoke with Old Joe Biden on Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the faux-president: “Those who play with fire will perish by it. It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this.’”
Why is Pelosi going to Taiwan at all? Why is it so all-important that she go there now? It isn’t at all clear why Pelosi is so intent on ratcheting up tensions by going to Taiwan, but now that the Chinese have issued so many threats, some on the Right see it as a matter of national pride that she actually stumble onto the Taipei tarmac. Intent on not letting the ChiComs push us around, Trump’s best Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, tweeted: “.@SpeakerPelosi. Nancy, I'll go with you. I'm banned in China, but not freedom-loving Taiwan. See you there!” Trump’s Defense Secretary, Mike Esper, agreed: “I think if the speaker wants to go, she should go.”
Really? That’s all there is to it? The House Speaker should risk provoking a world war for a photo-op, or for a meeting with her business interests, or whatever it is she has planned for her Taiwan trip? It isn’t as if Nancy Pelosi has to go to Taiwan in order to clarify the U.S. position on the island; the American stance on Taiwan and the People’s Republic is perfectly clear, regardless of whether she goes there or not. So what would the U.S., or anyone besides Nancy Pelosi herself, gain from her issuing one of her English-torturing statements Taipei?
Underlying all these questions is a larger problem: is risking a world war while our woke military is preoccupied with putting on drag shows really the best idea? Gen. Mark Milley and the rest of our woke military brass have been busy gutting our military with vaccine requirements and Critical Race Theory indoctrination. What do Milley and his henchmen think might happen when their troops, super peeved at the smallest microaggression, flounce out onto the battlefield in their high heels to meet the ChiComs? Milley might discover all too quickly that the military he has made is not quite as fabulous as he thought, at least not at the business of winning wars.
The military’s manifest weakness and wrongheadedness, in fact, is likely a principal reason why the Chinese are being so aggressive over Pelosi’s Taiwan trip. Will she get us into World War III? Wars have been fought for stupider reasons, but it would take quite a bit of research to find one.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 25 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/pelosis-showdown-china-robert-spencer/
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