Recently, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stopped off in Taiwan on her trip to East Asia. 

Normally, you wouldn’t think that was much. But the Chinese considered Taiwan part of China. They were quite angered by it or at least pretended to be angry. They made lots of threats. The Chinese media even talked about shooting down close his plane. 

That was probably never going to happen. But it gave a sense of how seriously it was taken. The US administration also took the Chinese threats seriously. The Defense Department, the CIA and the State Department, all urge Pelosi not to go. 

Well, let’s think about this in terms of both US politics and Chinese domestic politics. Pelosi really had to go. She has long been a supporter of Taiwan. She has constituents in her San Francisco district with close ties to Taiwan. She wasn’t going to give that up. Second, it’s important for the Congress to assert its independence from the administration. And with DOD, state and CIA, urging Pelosi not to go, it was an opportunity for Congress to assert its independence. She got a lot of support from across the aisle, including former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was the last speaker of the house to visit Taiwan. In general, more hawkish people in both parties were quite supportive. And a lot of people both in the Senate and the House, believe in asserting the independence of Congress. There was a third political reason for her to go. And that is congressional Democrats are trying to separate themselves from President Biden, who is deeply unpopular. And there’s no better way to do it than have one of their leaders do something that the Biden administration doesn’t want them to do. So Pelosi had a lot of reasons for going now considered the Chinese domestic situation. President G Xi Jinping is the not the president of China. He’s the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. The party was supposed to have a party congress this October, just say two months from now. It hasn’t been scheduled yet. That party congress was supposed to reelect GE, to a third term. But GE is in some political trouble at home, probably not enough to derail his reelection, but it’s trouble. nonetheless. He’s angered a lot of the political princes within the party by pushing his anti corruption campaign too far, including arresting some of their children. He’s run into problems with his zero COVID policy. Although we are local protests about it, people were literally millions of people were literally shut in their homes and their apartment houses were gated closed. This didn’t look good and people protested. Even more important, it created a slumping economy. Chinese GDP actually shrank in the second quarter, a very unusual development for the Chinese and a slumping economy makes G unpopular. Finally, and it may be hard for us to appreciate. She was shown up by a woman. The men who run most of the American government, were urging her not to go but she went anyway. So Speaker Pelosi is a very strong and forceful woman and sort of stared down President GE or excuse me, General Secretary GE. So this did not make him look strong at home. Well, how is all this going to work out? Both US domestic politics and Chinese domestic politics can be quite complicated. Asian ping likes to show himself as a forceful leader. His goal isn’t necessarily to make China Rich, but to make China powerful, and the party powerful within China. That would lean him toward having a very hawkish view in this situation, especially since he’s now committed. On the other hand, most of his domestic opponents think He’s a bit rash, and would rather have him calm down.

America really can’t back down. Taiwan is a vital part of the global supply chain. It is one of the largest suppliers of computer chips anywhere in the world. And so a Chinese blocked aid, which is how they’re now responding with air flights use of their navy, and shooting long range missiles is creating a semi blockade of Taiwan. If this goes on for more than a couple of weeks, the world economy will suffer. The US military and US administration will have no choice but to get involved. In the end, it’s going to be G who is going to have to stop what he’s doing. I’m not sure that’s going to happen. This is a story worth watching with big ramifications.