Nancy Pelosi leaves China dancing on frying pan
Photo credit Twitter Nancy Pelosi
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, August 4: The Speaker of the House of the Representatives in the US Nancy Pelosi swept past Taiwan as a cool breeze, leaving China to resort to fireworks in the Taiwanese strait to given a semblance of credibility to the muscular foreign policy of President Xi Jinping.
Xi has been jolted months ahead of the October Congress of the Communist party where he would seek another five years term, and pack his administration with ultra-loyalists.
Taiwan is surrounded by the exclusive economic zones of China, Japan and Philippines.
Some of the rockets, part of Beijing’s fireworks on Thursday, landed in the Japanese zone of waters.
Pelosi at that time was in South Korea, sipping green tea with her hosts in Seoul.
Xi’s might has been challenged by an 82-year-old democracy activist, who had in 1992 also shown her courage to take off the pro-democracy flag at the Tiananmen Square, the site of the massacre of own people by the Chinese rulers.
Xi is indeed pushed to the wall, for his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is floundering, leaving as many as 60 countries across the globe in financial dire straits.
Such countries just want the Chinese monkey off their backs.
A war at such a juncture when China has just woken up after most crippling ‘Zero Covid Policy’ would just make Xi a loser in the eyes of his own people, for even a small battle with Taiwan will wreck its export driven economy, as it would invite a trail of potent sanctions from the western world.
Former Major General S B Asthana told The Raisina Hills that a war would be the last thing in the mind of Xi at this juncture.
“The Chinese and Taiwanese military personnel have family relations, and casualties among them would be mourned in both the countries. Besides, China will have to seize land in the event of war which will be possible only with an amphibious attack for which Taiwan is well-prepared,” said Major General (Retd) Asthana.
He also underlined that Xi is least expected to scale up the confrontations, and would be happy with some show to go into the Communist Congress and wait for the Winter to get over to seriously apply his mind for any military operations against Taiwan.
Indeed, a war against Taiwan would bring in the full might of the US and its allies in the Asian theatre, and such a possibility appears remote.
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