House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is planning to visit Taiwan later this year, and the Pentagon is preparing for his trip, Punchbowl News reported on Monday.
The report said that the trip would likely take place in the spring, and the Biden administration is looking to be more proactive about McCarthy’s visit than it was when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) traveled to Taipei in August.
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was viewed in Beijing as a major provocation, and it sparked the largest-ever Chinese military drills around the island. The exercises included China firing missiles over Taiwan and simulating a blockade of the island, both unprecedented actions.
China has kept up the military pressure on Taiwan since Pelosi’s visit, and its warplanes regularly now cross the median line, an informal barrier that divides the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Before Pelosi’s trip, China barely crossed the line. Now, it’s an almost-daily occurrence.
Beijing views the US House speaker visiting Taiwan as an affront to the one-China policy and the understanding the US and China reached in 1979, when Washington severed formal relations with Taipei.
Proponents of Pelosi’s visit argued that there is a precedent since Newt Gingrich traveled to Taiwan as House speaker in 1997, but US-China relations were much better at the time. Gingrich made the trip to Taiwan after visiting mainland China.
McCarthy and other Republicans have said they will make confronting China a priority as they now have control of the House and established a new committee to deal with issues related to Beijing. But increasing support for Taiwan has bipartisan support as the Biden administration continues to take steps to boost ties with Taipei despite warnings from China that the issue is a “red line.”
The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act included unprecedented military aid for Taiwan, and China responded to President Biden’s signing of the bill by launching more major drills around Taiwan. McCarthy’s visit will almost certainly spark more Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, which China hawks in Washington will use to justify more support for the island.
Evangelical Zionists control the Republican party, all the way from the mainstream faction to the so-called “Populists” as well. So long as the cancer known as Evangelicalism is flourishing amongst a significant portion of the US population, we are destined for deep trouble. It should simply be outlawed- treated like wahhabism. The scum followers of that cult hate Russia, China and Iran and seek Nuclear War with them. No redeemable aspects about them.
Wahabism is a death cult so is the evangelism
“wahabism is a death cult …. ”
but you’re not allowed to say that.
“i don’t think that women should have any rights and LGBT should be executed”
“wow what a complete primitive a$$hole you are, you must be a republican”
“no, actually i’m a muslim and those are my religious beliefs”
“oh i apologize! i hope you don’t think that i am islamaphobic!”
“Evangelicalism” is so broad a term as to not be usefully descriptive. It includes any and all sects which believe in 1) the importance of being “born again” to receive salvation, and 2) spreading knowledge of that importance.
“Zionist” is to “evangelical Christian” as “anchovies” is to “pizza.” The former can be put on top of the latter, but the latter does not require, or even especially imply, the former.
Anchovies ruin pizzas and make them salt pies.
I agree. And I think the analogy works there, too.
Narrow it down to Premillenial Dispensationalists. They have embraced a heresy that is the driving force behind their bellicose views.
Why don’t US politicians visit their own constituencies? their own people? their own country? They love jetting around to foreign locals, fueled by ego.
What’s the point of elections again? So we switch from one war party to the other one? So more hawks can go provoke WWIII on taxpayer dime? Heavens forbid we go provoke a nuclear war with China and Russia at the same time….
He’s trying to start a war. It is the same as Netanyahu invading the Dome of the Rock or Biden refusing to discuss peace before the Ukraine War. They all choose convenient wars for selfish limited domestic political purposes.
That behavior is a war crime, and we ought to be prosecuting it, going back and starting at least with Cheney and John Bolton.
I’m sure the Chinese leadership are exclaiming “Well then! Game over!!!”
Does he have to get Marge’s permission first?
Democrat, Republican, Idiot…