ESOMKnicks wrote:Okay, maybe Pelosi has something up her sleeve which will magically diminish China's global military and economic power.

Cause if she doesn't, I guess her visit to Taiwan is just a demonstration that someone can be dumber than Trump on foreign policy.

And to think that she was actually one of my favorite US politicians.

Haven't politicians and members of the House been travelling to Taiwan for years as a show of solidarity towards their commitment to democracy? Much ado about nothing mostly generated from talking points raised by ever competing and ratings hungry 24 hour news networks and internet outlets.

foosballnick wrote:

ESOMKnicks wrote:Okay, maybe Pelosi has something up her sleeve which will magically diminish China's global military and economic power.

Cause if she doesn't, I guess her visit to Taiwan is just a demonstration that someone can be dumber than Trump on foreign policy.

And to think that she was actually one of my favorite US politicians.

Haven't politicians and members of the House been travelling to Taiwan for years as a show of solidarity towards their commitment to democracy? Much ado about nothing mostly generated from talking points raised by ever competing and ratings hungry 24 hour news networks and internet outlets.

Not of such high rank, since Newt Gongrich did it 25 years ago. But the geopolitical situation back then was vastly different (much more benign for the United States). And by doing so, he was not undermining the foreign policy of a US administration of his own party.

And today it is not just about the news outlets, unfortunately. China is actually actively sabre-rattling in response.

martin wrote:
Your base assumption is that visiting a place can be antagonizing enough to go to war over?

US politicians visited Ukraine. Is that also, in your opinion, the same type of visit and equally as a step and declaration against Putin?

I don't buy your assumption and don't think others do. This is a very scripted thing, this visit.

It is not an assumption, it is reality, China has openly talked about military measures, has gotten its fighter jets up in the air, and has amassed troops next to the Straights of Taiwan. It clearly takes this as an affront that it would not pardon, and I question why do we need this escalation right now, especially with Russia already running amok waging a war in Europe.

Is teasing and humiliating China really the best way to support Taiwan? Can the world actually afford such a conflict? Was China making a move against Taiwan that actually had to be countered like that? Is now the best time for the US to be escalating a situation that has been relatively dormant and actually suited everyone relatively well?

Unless someone can explain what am I missing, seems like a high-risk, zero-reward move by Pelosi. A dumb one.

N.B. Ukraine is an independent state. While the United States, right or wrong, officially does not recognize Taiwan as being independent of China.

ESOMKnicks wrote:

martin wrote:
Your base assumption is that visiting a place can be antagonizing enough to go to war over?

US politicians visited Ukraine. Is that also, in your opinion, the same type of visit and equally as a step and declaration against Putin?

I don't buy your assumption and don't think others do. This is a very scripted thing, this visit.

It is not an assumption, it is reality, China has openly talked about military measures, has gotten its fighter jets up in the air, and has amassed troops next to the Straights of Taiwan. It clearly takes this as an affront that it would not pardon, and I question why do we need this escalation right now, especially with Russia already running amok waging a war in Europe.

Is teasing and humiliating China really the best way to support Taiwan? Can the world actually afford such a conflict? Was China making a move against Taiwan that actually had to be countered like that? Is now the best time for the US to be escalating a situation that has been relatively dormant and actually suited everyone relatively well?

Unless someone can explain what am I missing, seems like a high-risk, zero-reward move by Pelosi. A dumb one.

N.B. Ukraine is an independent state. While the United States, right or wrong, officially does not recognize Taiwan as being independent of China.

joy

TripleThreat wrote:

ESOMKnicks wrote:On closer inspection, I realize that the sarcasm embedded in my original post may be too thick for some, so let me express my thoughts in a plainer language:

- Pelosi's ongoing visit to Taiwan is antagonizing China to the point of threatening war
- China is powerful economically and militarily
- Therefore, antagonism and war with China would be bad
- Therefore, what Pelosi is doing is bad and dumb
- In conclusion, I am concerned over the prospect of a war with China over this incident, and disappointed in Pelosi because I used to think she was not dumb

1) Joe Biden has little to no chance to win the 2024 election for President. One of the few ways he can win is if the United States is at war with China and the USA is winning. No one is going to want to rock the boat during the middle of a war where we look to be at an advantage. This is assuming there could be a war without total nuclear holocaust.

2) If the CCP and PLA are showing signs of attack, sending a high profile American politician makes an invasion impossible. If Xi Jinping orders an attack and Pelosi is killed, either intentionally or not, it drags the US into a war and justifies all the funding needed to create a long term proxy war using Taiwan against China. Or it drags all of NATO into the fight. Pelosi is expendable to Biden and she buys time.

3) If Pelosi is killed, why does that hurt Biden? Gavin Newsom is slated to run against Biden in the 2024 primaries and without Pelosi, he stands no chance at all.

4) All of this allows the mainstream media to talk about something else other than inflation, gasoline prices, the border and the growing problem of heavy crime/violence occurring all over the country.

5) Pelosi is OK with being used as essentially bait because she's mixed up in her own scandal - Her husband and the allegations of insider trading. This allows her to be seen as a "victim" in the media instead of as just another cruel wealthy politician who spits on the working class.

It's more valuable to Joe Biden, from a purely political strategy standpoint, to have Nancy Pelosi be killed by the CCP than not.

China is facing economic collapse of it's own. Xi Jinping has as much incentive as Biden to have a world war kick off to save his own hide.

China was going to eventually threaten war anyway. With or without Pelosi.

This is Biden's escape hatch. In less than two full years, he totally ****ed up this entire country. Fucked it up right good. So the only way out that he understands is keep printing money, mostly to buy votes like student loan forgiveness that's likely to happen right before the Mid Terms, and finding a way to send young people to die so the media narrative can switch topics away from his vast list of failures.

Some of you voted for him, so there you have it. Some of you didn't just vote for the nearly two years we got so far, but also many of you voted for the next two years after that, where the question remains how much more can Biden **** this country over and punish it before he's out of office. And who knows, 2024 is a long way off, maybe he scratches out a win and now America gets 6 more years plus change of this imbecile.

War of some kind was inevitable. Pelosi staying home wouldn't have changed that. I will say that there appears to be no rational actors left at the top of this administration. Biden, Harris, Pelosi and Schumer are inept and find a way to take a bad situation and make it 100 times worse.

I think her going is a sign to China not to attack.

We are very much skirting WW3 and it’s ludicrous but we’re a ludicrous species. He only hope is things de escalate or stay focused on proxy wars.

TripleThreat wrote:

ESOMKnicks wrote:On closer inspection, I realize that the sarcasm embedded in my original post may be too thick for some, so let me express my thoughts in a plainer language:

- Pelosi's ongoing visit to Taiwan is antagonizing China to the point of threatening war
- China is powerful economically and militarily
- Therefore, antagonism and war with China would be bad
- Therefore, what Pelosi is doing is bad and dumb
- In conclusion, I am concerned over the prospect of a war with China over this incident, and disappointed in Pelosi because I used to think she was not dumb

1) Joe Biden has little to no chance to win the 2024 election for President. One of the few ways he can win is if the United States is at war with China and the USA is winning. No one is going to want to rock the boat during the middle of a war where we look to be at an advantage. This is assuming there could be a war without total nuclear holocaust.

2) If the CCP and PLA are showing signs of attack, sending a high profile American politician makes an invasion impossible. If Xi Jinping orders an attack and Pelosi is killed, either intentionally or not, it drags the US into a war and justifies all the funding needed to create a long term proxy war using Taiwan against China. Or it drags all of NATO into the fight. Pelosi is expendable to Biden and she buys time.

3) If Pelosi is killed, why does that hurt Biden? Gavin Newsom is slated to run against Biden in the 2024 primaries and without Pelosi, he stands no chance at all.

4) All of this allows the mainstream media to talk about something else other than inflation, gasoline prices, the border and the growing problem of heavy crime/violence occurring all over the country.

5) Pelosi is OK with being used as essentially bait because she's mixed up in her own scandal - Her husband and the allegations of insider trading. This allows her to be seen as a "victim" in the media instead of as just another cruel wealthy politician who spits on the working class.

It's more valuable to Joe Biden, from a purely political strategy standpoint, to have Nancy Pelosi be killed by the CCP than not.

China is facing economic collapse of it's own. Xi Jinping has as much incentive as Biden to have a world war kick off to save his own hide.

China was going to eventually threaten war anyway. With or without Pelosi.

This is Biden's escape hatch. In less than two full years, he totally ****ed up this entire country. Fucked it up right good. So the only way out that he understands is keep printing money, mostly to buy votes like student loan forgiveness that's likely to happen right before the Mid Terms, and finding a way to send young people to die so the media narrative can switch topics away from his vast list of failures.

Some of you voted for him, so there you have it. Some of you didn't just vote for the nearly two years we got so far, but also many of you voted for the next two years after that, where the question remains how much more can Biden **** this country over and punish it before he's out of office. And who knows, 2024 is a long way off, maybe he scratches out a win and now America gets 6 more years plus change of this imbecile.

War of some kind was inevitable. Pelosi staying home wouldn't have changed that. I will say that there appears to be no rational actors left at the top of this administration. Biden, Harris, Pelosi and Schumer are inept and find a way to take a bad situation and make it 100 times worse.

Based on your simplistic talking points and finger pointing across the aisle I'll assume you are somewhere between Tucker and Hannity in your political education (or as some would call it....indoctrination). Not to worry though, you still have a serious learning curve ahead to achieve Breitbart and Infowars levels.

TripleThreat wrote:
War of some kind was inevitable. Pelosi staying home wouldn't have changed that. I will say that there appears to be no rational actors left at the top of this administration. Biden, Harris, Pelosi and Schumer are inept and find a way to take a bad situation and make it 100 times worse.

Yeah, and I was relieved for a while about having "dodged the Trump bullet". Guess, there is no escape from imbeciles, whichever party colors they may parade under.

The anti-China policy of both the Democratic and Republican Party is about the only issue they agree on. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that this is ultimately about the Congressional Military Industrial complex trying to prop up the biggest industry in the US, making weapons, and an attempt to repeat the Ukraine playbook, is start a proxy war to sell weapons and let other people, in this case the Taiwanese, to pay the price.

There's a bill in Congress right now that is looking to increase military aid to Taiwan and gut most of the provisions of the one China policy. Trust between the countries is already at an all time low because of the USA's ridiculous posturing on the Xinjiang issue. As a refresher, the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, riling up Islamic fundamentalism across the world. Xinjiang terrorists carried out several high profile attacks. China has done it's best to reeducate those people. Far from having any negative effects, the policy has for the first time actually brought those people into the the modern world. When I first came to China, Xinjiang gangs openly sold heroin around train stations- now the gangs are gone and there are many Xinjiang BBQ shops around my city who have adapted and achieved success simply by selling beer. The US has called this cultural genocide, an offensive term that cheapens what happened in the Holocaust. I don't like to engage in "what aboutism" but for a nation built from the start on eradicating and removing Native Americans before throwing them the sop of gambling licenses to assuage cultural guilt, it seems like the height of hypocrisy.

About 4 years ago I printed an American textbook on Chinese history for my students. Luna, a delightful girl, through the book at me and started yelling that I was poisoning their minds because the map of China was green and Taiwan was yellow. This is an issue the Chinese people feel extremely strong about at all levels.

WWI was started by Germany because of a "it's now or never" policy. Military reforms in both France and Russia meant both countries were likely to be stronger in the future. Facing domestic pressure from Socialists in the legislature to adopt a less militaristic policy, the German high command wrote Austria Hungary a blank check to give the Kaiser enough of an excuse to claim war was being forced on them. The speech given by the Chancellor asking for authorization to mobilize ended with "We are all Germans today"

Taiwan has been de facto independent for 73 years. There have been no changes to that de facto independence. It sadly seems obvious to me that rather than with griftocracy in America, the IS government is trying desperately to stir up conflict and war. This is a sad,sad day for me as I see my life's work of promoting understanding between China and the USA being flushed down the ****ter by corrupt octogenarians.