In just 18 hours of her laudatory visit to Taiwan, Nancy Pelosi managed to open a Pandora’s box in the most dangerous place on the planet, which is likely to become a hotbed of war between America and China. Aside from her harsh verbal attacks on China, her decision to visit an island of 23 million that lies just 100 miles off China’s coast and is considered an integral part of the national territory by Beijing itself translates as a direct encouragement of separatist tendencies.

The first tangible result of the US House Speaker’s visit was the military encirclement of Taiwan. Last Thursday, hours after Pelosi’s departure, China launched an unprecedented military exercise around Taiwan that consisted of a total air and sea blockade, accompanied by ballistic missile launches. In fact, this is a dress rehearsal for a war with the aim of capturing the island, which, apparently, was long planned by the Beijing military headquarters. Pelosi’s visit gave them the perfect occasion for a decisive show of force.

The international community’s concern about the future is fueled by fresh memories of the previous major crisis in the Taiwan Strait, triggered by then-Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui’s visit to US Cornell University in 1995. The Chinese responded to the harbinger of abandoning the One China policy and recognizing Taiwan as an independent state with a series of terrifying exercises and missile launches over the course of several months. The truth is that then US President Bill Clinton did not want Li to visit the US so as not to irritate Beijing. In fact, a year earlier, he humiliated him when his plane refueled in Hawaii, but the US denied him a visa. However, the House of Representatives, where anti-Chinese sentiment was strongest, voted to grant Li a visa to visit Cornell by a vote of 396 to 38 abstentions. After that, Clinton gave the go-ahead for the visit, Chinese universities created a warlike atmosphere, and America found itself on the brink of war with China, sending two aircraft carriers into the straits.

In a way, history seems to be repeating itself, as this time the fire was lit by Congress and its President (Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate backed Pelosi). National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his entire staff, as well as the Pentagon, were against the visit. Biden himself stated that “the military doesn’t think it’s a good idea at this time.” Former Hillary Clinton adviser Thomas Friedman called Pelosi’s visit “completely irresponsible” in New York Times columns. “One spark could turn this explosive situation into a military conflict, and that spark could be the visit of Nancy Pelosi,” said two analysts from the American Enterprise Institute and the German Marshall Fund, one of the most serious institutions of the American establishment. Central to their argument was that an enraged China could more decisively defect to Russia and supply it with military hardware — something it has so far avoided — at a time when the war in Ukraine is at a critical juncture.

motives

So why did Pelosi do it? The simple answer is that, ahead of the fall congressional elections, Democrats and Republicans are competing to be more assertive on China. However, the decisive factors probably lie deeper. Even assuming that Biden was concerned about the timing of the visit, it was he who, from the first moment of his presidency, raised the flag of the anti-Chinese crusade, throwing the slogan “Democracy or totalitarianism.” The infamous AUKUS pact, which also angered the French, has as its sole purpose the interception of China in the Indo-Pacific region. Biden’s inauguration was attended by Taiwan’s charge d’affaires, the first since 1978. ally”, the ultimate goal of which is its official recognition.

Europeans and Southeast Asian countries are not going to join the anti-Chinese front with America, since the consequences of a break with the world’s second largest economy will be catastrophic.

Based on this, Beijing rightly believes that the Biden administration is gradually chewing through the “one China” policy and that it must clearly draw its red lines in the sand before it’s too late. Along with the ongoing military pressure, where there will always be the risk of an accidental fire, he will definitely apply the paper of economic sanctions, which can have global consequences. Suffice it to say that the Taiwan Strait is one of the main channels for international shipping and that the island’s foundries produce 60% of the chips that the world uses for any electronic device, from coffee makers to cars and airplanes.

If Pelosi has managed to do anything, it is to break the anti-China front that Biden is trying to build. In the EU, he distanced himself from the US, emphasizing that he remains loyal to “one China,” because after the high price he paid for his enrollment in Ukraine, he does not intend to abandon Chinese investment. Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the day Pelosi was in Taipei, praised China for its neutrality in the war. Concern was expressed by ASEAN countries in Southeast Asia, and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol refused to interrupt his vacation to meet with Pelosi in Seoul.

After the crisis of 95-96, the American elites began to think about how close they had come to war with China and changed course. Clinton welcomed Chinese leader Jiang Zemin to her country in 1997 and three years later gave the Asian giant the go-ahead to join the World Trade Organization. Then China did not have aircraft carriers, today there are three. Back then, China’s GDP was one-tenth that of America’s, today it’s the equivalent of three-quarters, and China can blow up the dollar (at a huge cost to itself) because it’s holding a trillion. US debt. Simple logic dictates that, for all these reasons, a conflict between two great powers must be unthinkable. However, the inexorable logic of geopolitics often drags the great powers on their insane course, like passengers in a sleeping car who do not wake up until the moment of conflict.