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Taiwan, & Nancy Pelosi

The first thing that comes to mind is "what was she thinking".  Three weeks ago Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the house and America's third most important politician (third in succession if the President dies) flew to Taipei which created shock waves that continue to reverberate.  There are serval issues here that need to be addressed:

(1) What was Pelosi's objective in going to Taiwan?

The first thing is that NP has been a politician for a very long time;  She was first elected in 1987 -- so she understands the geopolitical implications of such a trip, she flew to Taiwan on a US military aircraft, with the support of the rest of the US government.  At first, glance it's not entirely clear what the US gets out of this trip.  Strictly speaking on what is "apparent" the visit by NP seems to have been a wasted opportunity.

(2) How did the Chinese react?

The Chinese leadership is not having a good time.  Both economics (an well beyond overheated housing market) and environmental issues (massive drought that has forced power stations to shut down), and the upcoming meeting of the communist party may make for a social imperative to change the conversation:  a small war may be the thing!  

It is easy to forget how important the housing market is in China, as it accounts for about 75% of all Chinese citizens' wealth. Prices have already reached the stratosphere (in shanghai it's 25x the average salary, NYC it's about 10x).  In addition, the massive drought that China is facing is already forced power stations to shut down.

A distraction may be required.  Now I don't want to undersell the importance of Taiwan to the Chinese, it has been a long-standing demand that Taiwan returns to the fold, it even pre-dates the request to return of Hong Kong.  The Chinese have become more belligerent in the South China sea, to the dismay of Vietnam, the Philippines and to a certain extent Japan.   

(3) How did Taiwan react?  

In general, the Taiwanese public is very relaxed about its relationship with the mainland, even when the Chinese were massing some vessels near two islands that are very near the coast of China, the population was very mercantile -- very much like Ukrainians who could not conceive that the Russians would invade.  At a more macro level, the Taiwanese government is playing a very strange game with very limited military spending (less than 2% of GDP) and arming for a conventional war when in reality Taiwan's fight with China will be anything but, Taiwan's best defense is similar to what the Ukrainians are doing, no so much fighting the Russians head to head but using guerrilla tactics, that have proved amazingly successful, and have even allowed Ukraine the "bring the fight to the Russian Territory".  Taiwan is not planning for that, in fact, Taiwan is not planning for anything.  There could be many reasons for that (a) not wanting to antagonize the Chinese, (b) electoral needs or (c) seeing money invested in the military as a waste -- the Taiwanese always operated with the idea that the Americans would be there for them!

(4) What are the geopolitical implications?

The undercurrent that is beginning to emerge is that this visit by NP was to encourage Taiwan to take its defense seriously, test the resolve of China and maybe strengthen America's allies' resolve in the region.  The Philippines have been on a long slippery slope of nationalistic self-determination, but have been playing the card, badly, of non-interference and of respect for their neighbours, especially if it could give Ramos the excuse of not investing in its military.  The Chinese expansion into the South China sea has shown the very limited scope of the Philippine reaction to the incursion into their waters by China.  Vietnam has taken an aggressive view vis-à-vis the Chinese but has very limited resources, and finds its own navy probably 20 years behind that of China.  Japan has not been very aggressive in strengthening its navy over the past two decades.  Most of its carrier forces are for helicopter support which greatly limits the Japanese navy's attack capability.

The Chinese announced war games shortly after NP's departure that would effectively blockade the Island of Taiwan for six days. 

Overall, it would seem that NP's visit to Taiwan has been a kick on a hornet's nest.  The overall impact is hard to quantify.  One thing for certain is that the Chinese are closer to being ready to invade Taiwan than they were in the past, but all other players, including the US, are operating on the backfoot and it may be years before any of them are ready to take action in the face of likely Chinese aggression in the Taiwan Strait.  These are the issues at hand.


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