Peasant Pelosi goes to Taiwan

 

 

 

 

 

 

A tale at the end of Western modernity. 

 

 

Westerners are boosting about their multiculturalism at home but they are nevertheless averse to share in the differences with “the other”. Racism separates whites from people of color and parks them in ghettos where they live in squalid misery. Another constant is that the West always feels a strong inclination to loot and to extract the resources of “the others” in far away places.

The separation of the West, with the rest, is rooted in this Western inclination whose deleterious effects on “the others” are plenty visible to whomever is willing to see.

While I’m writing this the news is falling that Nancy Pelosi’s plane left Singapore for Taiwan. A few hours from now we’ll know how the Chinese authorities handle this provocation. For how else could we characterized this utterly bizarre behavior in nation to nation relations ? Whatever happens this incident is going to deepen the animosity between China and the US and make the world a far more unstable place while it is already one minute before midnight on the atomic clock of the bulletin of atomic scientists (1).

Some 20 hours later the Chinese media’s rendition of the CPC’s answer, to this US provocation, is gradually taking shape. Its reasoning goes something like this :

1. The US unilaterally changed the status quo on Taiwan. David Goldman, from Asia Times, gives the best description of why Pelosi’s visit indeed changed the status quo :
   

   "US diplomatic relations with China began with the Shanghai Communique of 1972, which states:
   
   The US side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.
   
   … In an off-the-record discussion with Asia Times, one of the original members of the Richard Nixon delegation to China in 1972 stated that the Pelosi visit “clearly violates the spirit of the Shanghai Communique.” That stems from the Constitutional status of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
   
   ... Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is next in line to the vice president for succession. Because of the Speaker’s Constitutional position, she is the third highest official in the United States. A presidential or vice-presidential visit to Taiwan would cross China’s red line. A visit by the Speaker nudges the red line.
   
   ... After a series of missteps and official corrections, notably including the State Department’s fact sheet on US relations with Taiwan and Biden’s impromptu promise in Japan to defend Taiwan against a mainland military incursion, the Pelosi visit looks to Beijing like an American attempt to blur a red line that for Beijing is a raison d’etre of the Chinese state. On August 2, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke of American “perfidy” ". (2)



2. China takes the opportunity, of a changing status quo by the US, “to irreversibly change the Taiwan Straits situation and speed up the reunification process” (3).
   
   This 3rd of August Taiwan is de facto encircled by PLA forces. The Chinese ministry of defense informed the world to stay outside of Taiwan’s airspace and maritime zone because PLA exercises with live ammunition start today and will last until Sunday the 7th.
   
   It looks like China is blockading Taiwan which begs the following questions :
   
   
   • Will Pelosi’s plane be allowed to leave Taiwan before the end of the military exercises ?
   
   
   • A gas tanker is scheduled to supply Taiwan with a load of gas this 4th or 5th and the talk in Beijing is to keep the tanker outside of Taiwan’s waters. But electric turbines in Taiwan are running on gas and the island’s reserves will be empty by Saturday 6th. This is the hot season and if electricity production stops Taiwanese citizens will be really pissed off !  Who are they going to blame ?
     
   
   With this blockade China is giving proof, to the US, to the Taiwanese, and to the world, that it definitely has the power to bring Taiwan to a stand-still and that nobody can do anything about it !
   
   But the story does not stop there. It seems that China wants to extend its control over Taiwan’s airspace and maritime space through the promulgation of a new law !  If this were to pass China would have full control over all personal exchanges between Taiwan and the outside world which means that Pelosi style provocations will definitely be a memory of the past…



3. This typical Chinese ‘Taiji move’ is not only going to change the status quo. It is writing the new Geo-political narrative of the East-Asia sea and of "the First Island Chain".
   
   
   • It will exclude the US from the Taiwan-Strait and from Taiwan-island. China has position its military and is transferring military reinforcements from all around the country which means that further provocations from Taiwan-island will be answered with missiles on its military bases while the provocations of foreign aircraft-carriers will be calling for the signature of the hypersonic DF-21D.
   
   
   • It will definitely stop in their tracks outside political meddlers in the affairs of Taiwan.
   
   
   • It will break the US navy’s hold on the first island chain and the East China Sea which is at the root of the maritime containment of China that had been conceived, during the Korean War, by John Foster Dulles.
   
   
   • It will force the Taiwanese people to take note of the new realities that confront the island of Taiwan. The West will use its megaphones but Taiwan will be alone.
   
   
   • The US, Japan, and South-Korea will be faced with a “fait accompli”. Time passing the new realities will be digested and Korea,, Japan will discover that the West is naked and that their future is a community of common destiny with China at the core.
   
   
   • But above all, the whole world is witnessing the mastery of China in the Dao which takes advantage of the stupidity of the hegemon to force the emergence of new realities without resorting to violence. And the world is sure to have a good laugh at the sight of the sore loser that is this mean American teenager !

This detour through the actualities of the day gives a good overview of the different nature of the thinking of Chinese people. Living among them since a few decades I developed the concept of “The continuity of the societal cultural field” to understand how Westerners and Chinese are thinking, behaving, and acting so differently and how these differences emerged in the dawn of human history. 

 

Here above I have been reading the actuality of Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan through the prism of that concept. If interested the whole story of this concept will be available in "The Great Turning 04" that will be published on Friday August 12th.

Notes.

1.  "At doom’s doorstep: It is 100 seconds to midnight", Science and Security Board. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2022 Doomsday Clock Statement.

 

2.  "Why Pelosi’s Taiwan visit is so dangerous", Asia Times, by David Goldman. 2022-08-03.

 

3.  “US bears full responsibility for all consequences of Pelosi's Taiwan visit, China warns", Global Times, by Chen Qingqing. Published: 2022-08-02 Updated: 2022-08-03.