I’ll explain the consequences of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Talk Doctors (Limes)
What changes after Pelosi's trip to Taiwan. The post by Germano Dottori, scientific advisor of Limes
Was Pelosi right to go to Taiwan at a time like this?
From the American point of view, most likely yes. Things change if instead we look at the overall stability of the international system. Especially in perspective. Because, according to what is understood at the moment, China is having the worst after having threatened "serious consequences". Probably, in Beijing they experience it as a humiliation. The first since the Communists came to power. Beijing plans for the long term, unlike Washington, which moves on a four-year horizon. We hope well.
But is Taiwan really in danger of ending up like Ukraine? Or the China of Russia?
They are two completely different scenarios. Taiwan is a powerfully armed island. Invading it would not be easy, especially with the United States facing it. Because the ultimate guarantor of Taipei's de facto independence is the US Navy, which enjoys absolute supremacy, even though it can no longer operate under the Chinese coasts. Ukraine and Russia, on the other hand, have a long land border. And in the approaching stages of confrontation, the President of the United States had been very clear in excluding an American competition aimed at defending Ukraine. An even clearer signal came from the withdrawal of the military advisers that the Americans and British had on Ukrainian soil. On the other hand, near Taiwan there is the Reagan aircraft carrier. And Japanese hunting has also moved, a fact not to be overlooked.
The position of the US defending Taiwan by recognizing China is curious. But isn't it the contradiction of the whole world in the confrontation between a democratic country on the sidelines and a tyrannical colossus with which everyone wants to do business?
The choice was made a long time ago. By convention, there is only one China that both Beijing and Taipei claim to represent in their entirety. At some point, it was decided that recognition belonged to the People's Republic rather than the Republic of China: but the Americans reserved the right to defend it. This situation survived the reconciliation between Beijing and Washington in Nixon's time. I don't think an economic logic is at work: politics and strategy always prevail. When that doesn't happen, it disappears from the geographic map.
Harari said that wars are no longer convenient today because they cost too much. Wealth creates Silicon Valley and you can't plunder Sulicon Valley. But you can take away Taiwanese chips from the West, just as Russia created a food emergency on Ukrainian agricultural exports…
Wars have never been convenient. They are also risky for the conquerors, who always wish to be greeted by cheering crowds instead of fighting. In Italy, the relationship between politics and economics is often misrepresented, due to a die-hard economic prejudice. Power costs, consumes resources. It does not serve to generate wealth, but to satisfy status ambitions. It is also true that the method of representing interests in politics can limit the autonomy of the decision-maker, especially in weaker systems. Apparently, China is acknowledging that it cannot confront the United States militarily at this stage and therefore tries to assert itself by resorting to economic weapons: denying Taiwan the sands it takes to produce semiconductors. We'll see how it turns out. We will probably experience price increases on more advanced technology products.
The current problem is that the party that wants Taiwan's definitive independence is in power? Or would the problem also exist with the Kuomintang in government?
The problem is the geopolitical rise of China combined with its desire to project itself also towards the Pacific and the oceans of the world. It is a challenge to the foundations of US global supremacy. Taiwan is a stumbling block like Ukraine, on which a game is being played that goes far beyond the preservation of Kiev's independence, involving Europe, which some would like to separate from its mining hinterland, Russia, and the others, on the other hand, divide forever from the American ally.
Even Taiwan has contradictions. The democratic government says one thing, the constitution is still that of nationalist China. With the capital Nanjing. But the beauty is that if Beijing changes it, it gets angry.
Of course, because the principle of the uniqueness of China disappears together with all the architecture of relationships that has been built around this fiction. It would be a question of breaking the status quo, which Beijing would like to resolve in due course by reabsorbing its "rebellious" province which, we recall, is what it is because the nationalists defeated in the civil war took refuge there.
Pelosi's was seen as a header, perhaps with electoral reasons. Is this so or is Washington really looking for a confrontation?
It is unlikely that the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives took such a step without consulting with the Biden Administration, which was responsible for the security of his trip. I would say that it was a very carefully thought-out move, to affirm the principle that the United States is not intimidated by anyone, least of all by a power that is not yet capable of challenging it militarily. In fact, the trip took place at a time when the global correlation of forces does not offer much room for response to the Chinese, who are responding with sanctions for the time being. It is less clear whether the strategic calculation made in Washington has taken into account the longer-term consequences of this trip by Pelosi: in Beijing someone will see in the events of these days an event that adds to the "century of humiliations".
(Libero's interview with Germano Dottori extracted from a post published by Dottori on his Facebook profile)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/visita-pelosi-taiwan-conseguenze-analisi-germano-dottori/ on Sun, 07 Aug 2022 06:27:58 +0000.