Meanwhile in his Washington Post column Josh Rogin considers why Beijing overreacted to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan:
China’s overreaction and retaliation toward Taiwan following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit shows that the leadership in Beijing is now focusing on taking the island by force, not through peaceful reunification as it has long claimed. Chinese President Xi Jingping’s strategy has moved from winning Taiwanese hearts and minds to inciting fear and loathing.
Although China seems to be finally winding down its military exercises around Taiwan, a week after Pelosi visited the democratic island, China’s drastic responses and ongoing punishments mark the beginning of new era of heightened danger. China canceled three military-to-military dialogues and suspended several bilateral cooperation programs on topics ranging from climate change to counternarcotics.
I’m going to be bold enough to disagree with Mr. Rogin. I don’t believe that Beijing overreacted at all. If anything they’ve underreacted although it’s really too early to tell how they’ve reacted.
What would we think if Ohio’s governor gave V. Putin a hero’s walcome in Columbus? I doubt that President Biden would be very happy about it. That’s more the way the Chinese see Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan than the way Mr. Rogin is framing it.
And then there’s the optics of it. From the Chinese point of view the visit was disrespectful to the Chinese—an insult.
I don’t know Speaker Pelosi went to Beijing at President Biden’s behest as some have claimed, whether he supported her visit, or whether she was playing a lone hand. I suspect he supported the visit since he could have stopped her official transport just by saying “no”.
Whatever the case we are lurching down a path to greater hostility between China and the United States and the implications of such hostility are far from predictable.
To an American observer, especially one in the beltway bubble like Rogin, I’m sure the response seems like an over-reaction.
But Rogin ignores the intended audience, which is primarily the domestic mainland Chinese audience. I took a look at some of the analyses of Chinese social media, and a non-trivial number of people expressed anger that the Chinese government did not shoot down Pelosi’s plane. In that context, China’s response was quite measured.
It does worry me, because I keep seeing the same cognitive mistakes WRT to China that were made with Russia and Ukraine. The assertion that Russia would not use force, that Russian fears of NATO were not honestly held, that Russia would not allow Ukraine to exist outside its orbit. All these things were ignored by the hubris of the DC establishment.
And now the reaction to China is following a similar vein – not taking China’s threats seriously, not believing that China really does think it owns Taiwan and will act accordingly, failing to appreciate even the surface level of domestic and elite opinion on the mainland, etc.
Add Iran, Bolivia, Columbia, Venezuela, and North Korea. In every case the US adopts an extremely aggressive stance towards an adversary, and is surprised by the adversaries reaction. In part this is because our Elite Caste actually believes the US has absolute supremacy in all fields, economic, military, and diplomatic. They believe our adversaries have no option but to submit to our demands, and that our adversaries have no basis for complaining about our actions nor any capability to oppose them.
These are not cognitive mistakes. These are psychotic fantasies.
The Chinese did under react, and that is the problem. They probably judge that an actual invasion is now too soon. They need more time to prepare. But Pelosi’s visit has put the invasion in motion, and it will happen.
Our three major adversaries, Russia, China, and Iran, will not any longer negotiate with us or even talk to us. That all by itself is a disaster portending greater disaster in the future, including nuclear war. The fact that we disdainfully ignored Russia’s demands for a renegotiation of security arrangements in Europe led inevitably to the Ukrainian war. Russia was backed into a corner, and it could not survive as a major power if it submitted. Now we have put China in the same spot. They must fight or submit.
It was the Pro-Russian people who said Russia would never use force. Russia babbled about NATO but they also babbled about reforming the empire. Buy the babble if you want but this was about keeping Putin and his admin in power. The economy had stagnated. He risked losing Ukraine as an economic pawn.
China? I was assured we would be at nuclear war by now. (Russia too come to think of it.) China will invade Taiwan if and when they decide it can be done and it will work to their advantage. They dont need an excuse but they will create one when it is time. In the meantime, this was good theater for the domestic audience.
Steve
steve,
It was Russian experts that predicted it and were warning about Ukraine and NATO expansion before Putin came to power.
The theory that that invasion was entirely about keeping Putin in power and for economic reasons is what is babble that ignores longstanding historical and geostrategic realities.
WRT to China, it’s a similar delusion. If you really think that US policy is irrelevant like it was in Ukraine, and that China doesn’t need an excuse, then we might as well end the fiction of the One China policy, recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, and start floating the idea of a formal defense treaty. Let’s see what happens then. When China invades after we do that, I’m sure there will be people claiming the US had nothing to do with it, that Xi just wants to keep power, the economy, blah, blah, etc. while ignoring everything else.
The long-standing realities have been in place for a long time but Putin is invading now. On a long term basis Russia wants its empire. Its neighbors do not want to join, hence they keep asking to join NATO and the US. Russia could change its behaviors so that those countries do not feel threatened. Instead Russia doubles down. So in context, yes NATO was an issue but the inciting event was Putin’s desire to remain in power.
A number of those experts you cite have as their solution just letting Russia reform its empire while everyone stands and watches. (This is a bit starker than what they actually say, but it is what it amounts to in the end.) Doesnt seem right to me. Anyway, Russia has alway had the ability to reduce the influence of NATO. Instead they chose to incentivize its expansion.
On China lets not forget that the talk about China using military force to take over Taiwan is longstanding and has been escalating for the last couple of years. Its internal politics will dictate it moves. Pelosi is inconsequential. Countries act in their own interests, usually, though not always in the most effective way.
Steve
Steve
“On a long term basis Russia wants its empire. Its neighbors do not want to join, hence they keep asking to join NATO and the US. ”
So you could say the same thing with China and Taiwan. Yet we pursued a very different policy there. And consider the logic. Russia wants its empire. What should anyone expect Russia to do when that goal is threatened? It’s not like 2014 wasn’t a big clue. The closer that Russia came to losing its influence in Ukraine, the more likely open war became. That is what US policymakers ignored and instead just assumed that Russia would do nothing as it had done in the past.
It’s the same thing with Taiwan. If you want to ensure that China attacks Taiwan, the best way to accomplish that is to ditch the One China policy.
“Russia could change its behaviors so that those countries do not feel threatened.”
China could also change its behavior so that others don’t feel threatened. China should recognize the wisdom of an independent Taiwan, and they should not have any legitimate concerns with Taiwain being aligned with the US.
Change China to Russia in that and Taiwan to Ukraine, and that was our policy.
And yes, China and Russia could change their behaviors. What is the delusion is believing that they will and that they will sit by and do nothing because our view of the world order is so obviously correct that they will surely come to realize it. Hope is not a strategy, and stupid hubris by ignoring the interests of other countries and the logical consequences of countering those interests is what I object to.