Members of the newly formed House committee on China are in talks about sending a delegation to Taiwan, knowing that it will “infuriate” Beijing and likely raise military tensions in the region.
The House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party was formed on January 10 after Republicans took majority control of the chamber.
A senior member of the panel, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), told Nikkei Asia that he and other committee members are considering making the trip to Taiwan. “We know that will infuriate the Chinese,” he said. “But I think it’s incredibly important for us to do that, because you have to send the signal that we’re strongly on the side of Taiwan.”
House GOP leadership is also planning to visit Taiwan, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Michael McCaul (R-TX), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. McCaul recently said he plans to lead a delegation to Taipei this spring and that McCarthy’s trip would take place after his, either later this year or sometime in 2024.
McCarthy’s planning to make the trip even though former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) visit last August provoked the largest-ever Chinese military exercises around Taiwan, and Beijing has kept up the military pressure since.
A senior Pentagon official told Nikkei that more congressional delegations visiting Taiwan will escalate military tensions and provoke a response from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
“We think they’re always prepared to do something of that nature,” the official said, referring to the PLA. “We saw that with the quickness that the PLA was able to respond to Speaker Pelosi’s visit.”
I look forward to more mental gymnastics from our press on how all this unending escalation in the Ukraine and now China, towards a world war our government obviously is longing to fight at our expense, actually means the USA loves peace.
The clinical term is “attention seeking behavior”.
That certainly appears to be one of the motives!
There has been a lot of talk about using Taiwan to goad China into doing something that would provide an excuse for armed conflict. But there hasn’t been enough talk about how we are interfering in the internal affairs of Taiwan itself. I wonder what the Kuomintang Party thinks about all of this support for the independence party.
China allows the US to traverse the Taiwan strait, and allows these mendacious politicians to travel to Taiwan. China is not afraid to say no to both actions..yes trade could be threatened, but forbidding Taiwan to become a US bulwark is in China’s best interest. US politicians = Fiends.
If only my representative will actually travel to my district, maybe I can find eggs for less than $10 on the shelves. Seriously, why do House members get to go across the world to provoke tensions on taxpayer agenda?
These sad Republican dolts know something is wrong, but they have no idea what they can do to put things right as they once were. I do not believe that a goal of infuriating Russia is not the answer. The trouble is that that train has already left the station. No one can change what has already happened. Time once lost can never be recovered and deterrence pissed away chasing terrorists and (gasp!) balloons cannot be recovered. NO! Some follies produce situations which devolve from stupidity to chaos to disaster. This Ukraine war with Russia is beginning to manifest itself as the beginning of the end for American primacy. It’s not just the lost time and the trillions squandered, it is the sorrid direction that America has taken. If the humiliating rout in Afghanistan wasn’t warning enough after the Iraq fraud, and the Vietnam debacle, what exactly is it going to take to get us to sober cup and get back to honest work and governance. Will we need to suffer a grievous fall with half of cities smoldering hulks and too many years without sunlight to correct our hubristic recklessness? Watching Biden and Nuland threaten Russia and Germany with the end of their mutually beneficial energy arrangement makes me wonder if my family and I will survive his confrontational conduct of destruction and denial. Telling ones near peer nuclear adversary that we are supporting their neighbors war against them to weaken them is dangerous to the extreme, even when at the top of their great gamesmanship, but from the laggard position that we are currently in it begs the great fall that hubris invites. Will most of us live until we will be able to vote against Blundering Biden in the next presidential election??? I Have no idea. Biden denials and our broadcasters and print media falling in line to ignore Seymour Hersh’s revelation that Biden did the act of war that he and Nuland threatened against Russia and Germany only removes any checks and oversight of our Country’s decline into absolute madness. We need a media that is free to discuss the biggest story of these two years, not abet the denial and censorship and dangerous silence on our probable act or war against a peer nuclear adversary. It’s times like these that require sober and prudent words and deeds, not the decisive bluster and bravado that have propelled this situation from dangerous to deadly!