On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 25 other Republican senators issued a statement supporting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for visiting Taiwan, demonstrating the bipartisan consensus for ratcheting up tensions with China.
“We support Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan,” the statement reads. “For decades, members of the United States Congress, including previous speakers of the House, have traveled to Taiwan.”
Pelosi is the first House speaker to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich made the trip in 1997. To Beijing, her visit signals that the US government is moving away from the one-China policy.
The Republican senators insist that Pelosi’s travel “is consistent with the United States’ One China policy to which we are committed. We are also committed now, more than ever, to all elements of the Taiwan Relations Act.”
Pelosi touched down in Taiwan on Tuesday, and China has responded to her provocation by launching military drills, including live-fire exercises, all around the island. Pelosi made the trip despite warnings from the Biden administration that it could provoke a major crisis across the Taiwan Strait.
Since rumors first emerged that Pelosi would be traveling to Taiwan, she has received strong support from Republicans, including former Trump administration officials. “Glad to see Speaker Pelosi follow through today on her visit to Taiwan,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Visit-not-visit: that’s the extent of US political class analysis, adhering to the same old, now entirely exhausted machinations that drove the Cold War. The most basic, most fundamental tragedy is that Frances Fukuyama was right: History is dead. As we knew it. The world has changed in highly significant ways. Despite these (transnationalism, global economy, technical innovations affecting information distribution, communications, changes in population and economic patterns) those “in charge” of international affairs fall back haplessly on the old strategies.
Their frozen brains (but very unfrozen pocketbooks) are keeping us locked into an apparent death spiral. And these old brains are infecting those up-and-comers who will fill their spots that fine day when they finally pass on. At last. As no new ideas are allowed in on penalty of potentially being termed “treasonous,” the noobs are very unlikely to lift their heads above the level of their knees, from which they currently, self-protectively genuflect to their “betters.”
Bipartisan war parties at it again.
As an independent I will no longer vote in elections in America!
I too am an independent. I believe the most effective strategy is to not pay taxes into the mouth of the beast come 4/15/2023. If 200 million workers in America do that, it would grab the attention of the beast.
So by the same token RetardiQAns should not mind if China send a delegation to Hawaii discussing their independence from US…!
DC has ruled Hawaii since 1892.
Beijing has not ruled Taiwan since 1895.
Taiwan cannot survive without China…!
Yes, I remember when the US government was overthrown, the leaders of that government fled to Hawaii, and then independently governed it for 80 years.
Oh, wait. Since that didn’t happen, your analogy is a complete failure.