A growing number of Republican China hawks have come out in support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plans to visit Taiwan next month as the Biden administration is concerned the trip could spark a crisis across the Taiwan Strait.
Republicans that have expressed support for Pelosi’s plans include Senators Ben Sasse (NE), Tom Cotton (AR), and John Cornyn (TX). “Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and President Biden should make it abundantly clear to Chairman Xi that there’s not a damn thing the Chinese Communist Party can do about it,” Sasse said on Monday.
Cotton said on Tuesday that Pelosi should “go forward” with her trip and that President Biden shouldn’t stop her. “If Joe Biden prevents Nancy Pelosi or any other member of Congress from traveling to Taiwan, it will create a major foreign policy crisis,” he said.
Republican support for the trip also comes from former Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. During the Trump administration, the US started sending high-level delegations to Taiwan in unprecedented visits as part of its policy against China, a policy the Biden administration has continued.
If Pelosi makes the trip, she will be the first House speaker to do so since Newt Gingrich visited the island in 1997. Gingrich was the speaker for a Republican-controlled House during the Clinton administration at the time, and he also voiced support for Pelosi.
“What is the Pentagon thinking when it publicly warns against Speaker Pelosi going to Taiwan? If we are so intimidated by the Chinese Communists we can’t even protect an American Speaker of the House why should Beijing believe we can help Taiwan survive. Timidity is dangerous,” Gingrich wrote on Twitter Monday.
Pelosi has also received support for the trip from her fellow Democrats, including Sen. Bob Menendez (NJ), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Ro Khanna (CA), the progressive lawmaker who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.
“We’re not going to let the Chinese Communist Party dictate where the Speaker of the House should go,” Khanna told CNN. “We shouldn’t allow them to bluff and dictate to America, the greatest nation in the world, where our Speaker of the House should travel.”
The bipartisan support for Pelosi’s provocative trip comes after President Biden said the military doesn’t think it’s a “good idea” for her to go. While seemingly opposed to the trip, the administration maintains that they can’t force Pelosi not to travel to the island, which is hard for the Chinese to believe.
China views Pelosi’s travel plans as a major provocation because she is a high-level US government official, who is even in line for the presidency if something happens to the president and vice president, and it would signal Washington is abandoning the one-China policy.
“As the No 3 leader of the US administration, if Pelosi insists on coming to Taiwan … it will inevitably cause extremely serious damage to ties between the Chinese and US governments, as well as the two militaries, leading to further escalation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said on Tuesday.
Chinese military analysts told The South China Morning Post that the trip risks direct conflict between the US and Chinese militaries. They said it will be different from when Gingrich made the visit in 1997 because China’s military is now much stronger.
Ah yes, the “progressive” Democratic house leader getting support from Republican hawks. The bipartisan war party at it again.
This visit is to get a timetable of pulling out all of their semiconductor machinery and patents. U.S. is extremely nervous of an attack. We are truly helpless if this happens.
Pelosi’s husband is using her for insider trading of semi stocks.
This visit is purely a selfish enterprise to muck around with Semiconductor companies and equities.
If China attacks Taiwan American semiconductor equities shoot up on the markets. NVIDIA, AMD Intel.
I can no longer vote in an American election. As a conservative I am not represented by Republicans or DimoRats.
CT:
I typically perceive myself as beyond Liberal since I often go against the status quo (of either party) and have on occasion supported some traditional conservatives.
Political parties don’t interest me even though our system is set up for following the dogmas of both party lines. Dogmas don’t interest me, people do and I have no problems crossing political party lines to support anyone who is a person of good character, who has good ideas.
As a conservative I am also an Independent and also do not vote along party lines. I just do not se the point of voting anymore since there are no candidates or politicians that represent me.
I can relate to that…
Why not thumb our nose at China, it’s the US’s genuine anti diplomatic pro war position. When we lose the war against pretty much everyone everywhere who doesn’t follow our dictates, and if we manage to not make it go nuclear, when the dust settles perhaps some sanity and balance can return to our planet and it’s people. We seem completely incapable of acting reasonably and cooperatively now.
We just lost a war against guys running around in sandals.
Nah, we strung out a war for 20 years to keep the spigots flowing.
Sandals & man dresses.
The trifecta– stupid, evil, and insane.
Direct military confrontation between China and the US will not be frowned on by many Russians or, I imagine, quite a few in the US who are hoping for US regime change and a step toward real democracy. Where should a capitol that does not copy slave-powered ancient Roman architecture be located?
Havana? Chattel slaves, wage slaves, debt slaves, … the essence of capitalism is exploitation and for sure its capitol is Washington or Wall St. or Beacon Hill or Frisco or Houston, etc.. But probably China is too wise to challenge Speaker Pelosi’s visit other than rhetorically, while quietly increasing support for Russia to bleed the West.
“Timidity is dangerous,” Gingrich straight from Nazi propaganda:
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. — Hermann Göring[68]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
That’s it, in a nutshell. Really worked swell after 9/11. Even Dan Rathers was on board.
so why was china even told that pelosi might visit taiwan.
maybe just to stir up more political theater.
Tactical error, leak, or if deliberate, an attempt to stop her before she goes through with it. Gringich went, nothing happened… But I suppose the world is a bit different than it was then.
Republicans that have expressed support for Pelosi’s plans include Senators Ben Sasse (NE), Tom Cotton (AR), and John Cornyn (TX). “Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and President Biden should make it abundantly clear to Chairman Xi that there’s not a damn thing the Chinese Communist Party can do about it,” Sasse said on Monday.
Diplomacy, American style.
Rather Yankee, or Redneck Cowboy Style… The rest of American Continent is an exception…!
Yes, I should have specified.
It’s good cop, bad cop routine. Biden, as usual, plays the inept folly who can’t convince anyone of anything but that is largely his aim anyway.
I really don’t think that’s what’s going on. He doesn’t need a headache with China right now. This is more likely to do with her seeing her time as Speaker coming to an end (or indeed, mortality, she ain’t no spring chicken) and finishing on a high consistent with her stance on China since Tiennamen.
Except they could do something about it. By sending fighter jets to “buzz” her plane and keep doing it till they are forced to land elsewhere (Japan, perhaps). Not saying they will. But they certainly could if they were determined to do so.
This will not end well. The Chinese are not bluffing.