Remember when Donald Trump was going to start WWIII? Which time? you ask. Exactly. The panic-mongering over Trump doing whatever it was that triggered the legacy media at any given time was just that: ludicrous panic-mongering.
The panic-mongering over Nancy Pelosi’s state visit to Taiwan has been no less ludicrous. Drunk ol’ Grandma Pelosi was going to start a war with China! China would shoot down her plane! And so on…
Now, I detest Pelosi as much as anyone, but credit where it’s due here: she’s done a great thing in demonstrating in the strongest terms yet America’s commitment to Taiwan.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi left Taiwan on Wednesday after touting its democracy and pledging American solidarity during her brief visit, adding that Chinese anger cannot stop world leaders from travelling to the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing […]
“Our delegation came to Taiwan to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” Pelosi told Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, who Beijing suspects of pushing for formal independence – a red line for China.
“Now, more than ever, America’s solidarity with Taiwan is crucial, and that’s the message we are bringing here today,” Pelosi said during her roughly 19-hour visit.
Reuters
It’s a message the world — especially China — needed to hear. China has been allowed to push its aggressive expansion in the Pacific, and its intimidation of democracies around the world, virtually without pushback.
To really rub it in Beijing’s face, Pelosi met with a former Tiananmen activist, a refugee from the crackdown in Hong Kong, a Taiwanese activist recently detained by China, and the Tibetan government-in-exile’s representative in Taiwan.
Pelosi’s visit doesn’t just reaffirm American solidarity — especially given widespread doubts fuelled by the Biden’s family’s dealings in China — it also caps decades of her admirable record in speaking out on China’s human rights abuses.
In 1991, Pelosi and two other US lawmakers unfurled a banner in Tiananmen square itself, commemorating the democracy activists murdered just two years earlier. Chinese police quickly converged and forced her out of the square. In 2015, Pelosi travelled with a US delegation to Tibet.
The reaction of China’s lickspittles and toadies spoke volumes. Former Australian PM Kevin Rudd denounced the visit, while the current government shuffled its feet and mumbled.
The Australian government wasn’t exactly cheering on Nancy Pelosi yesterday in her visit to Taiwan. There was no applause from Canberra for this mission by the US Speaker of the House to champion democracy.
Indeed, the Prime Minister gave a dead-pan reaction when asked for his views. “The level of US engagement with our Taiwanese counterparts is a matter for them” was all he would offer.
The Foreign Minister used the same set of deliberately unenthusiastic words: “It’s a matter for them”.
ABC Australia
Penny Wong went on to repeatedly babble about “de-escalating”, which sounds suspiciously like blaming the victim rather than telling the bully to back off. The US Deep State and the commentariat are also clearly unhappy about the Democrat administration growing a pair against China. Similar to “officials” walking back the President’s unequivocal “Yes” to military action to defend China, the legacy media and “think tanks” were united in hooting and howling against Pelosi’s visit.
Beijing gave them plenty of ammo to hurl at Pelosi. China threatened “forceful responses” to block the visit. China’s fifth columnists in the West shrieked about Chinese planes blocking Pelosi’s aircraft, even shooting it down.
But there’s a Russian proverb, going back to Soviet days, about “China’s final warning”. It referred to China’s constant issuing of “final warnings” to the US over Taiwan in the 50s and 60s. Warnings that never came to anything.
The honking Chinese Chorus are now pointing quivering fingers at China’s latest incursions into the Taiwan Strait, flying military aircraft and staging military exercises. Business-as-usual, in other words — and notably, China waited until after Pelosi left to resume it’s swaggering and chest-beating.
The atmosphere of menace across the 110-mile wide strait contrasted with the festive reception in Taipei for Pelosi […]
Pelosi hailed Taiwan as “one of the freest societies in the world” and pledged solidarity. “Our delegation came to make unequivocally clear that we will not abandon Taiwan,” she said. “America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains iron-clad.”
Tsai decorated Pelosi with the “Order of Propitious Clouds with Special Grand Cordon” in recognition of her “unwavering support”.
The Australian
If only more Western leadership — as well as the chattering classes — were willing to stand up to China in such an unabashed fashion.