Nancy Pelosi is the symbol of monstrous arrogance

10.08.2022, 10:10 weeklyblitz.net

Commenting on August 2, 2022 Taiwan visit of Nancy Pelosi, Member of the European Parliament Clare Daly said: “Wasn’t even put off by Biden and the US military warning her not to. A stupid, vain, reckless decision, with potentially dire consequences for everyone alive, taken for the sake of a meaningless publicity stunt. God save us from the monstrous arrogance of Nancy Pelosi”. Replying to Clare Daly’s tweet, one commentator said, “Pelosi apparently believes this stunt might get republicans to switch parties in November. My God. How dumb have we become? Is it the increasing levels of CO2 in the air?” Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan trip was clearly a war provocation. It showed the Biden administration is desperately looking for opening another war front, by pushing the US to a direct war against China. This has generated fears and uncertainty even in the minds of Taiwanese masses. But British newspaper The Guardian in an opinion-editorial turned-down the possibility of any war igniting in Taiwan. It said: At a central Taipei branch of a popular bank on Tuesday, a few clients came to Joseph Chiu, a teller, with an odd request: to withdraw millions of kuai from their accounts. “They worry the bank will close its doors tomorrow,” he said during an afternoon streetside smoke break. -Advertisement- Chiu said he wasn’t worried about such an event, and there is no indication that it is even a possibility, but it was a small sign that among Taiwan’s stoic, often fatalistic population, something had shifted this week. A few hours later Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, landed at Taipei’s Songshan airport with a delegation from Congress. The visit – plans for which were leaked some weeks ago – comes at a time of extraordinary sensitivity and has threatened to spark a fourth Taiwan strait crisis. -Advertisement- Foreign reporters quoted Taiwanese people telling the world once again: we have been under the threat of Chinese invasion every day for decades, so what’s the use in worrying about it? “It’s useless to worry too much,” said Chiu. “You’ve seen the Russian war, and what war looks like. If it happens, it happens.” -Advertisement- People’s reasons not to worry are diverse, ranging from seeing invasion as an unstoppable inevitability, to a futile mission bound to be resisted by Taiwan or thwarted with US help, to something that simply won’t happen because no one wants it. But then Pelosi’s visit was confirmed and the mood shifted. News sites ran polls, with almost two-thirds of UDN’s respondents saying the visit was destabilizing. Talk radio discussed preparation and escape plans, and walked listeners through their growing anxieties. At one point more than 300,000 people around the world were tracking her flight on FlightRadar24, before the site crashed under load. -Advertisement- Generally, Taiwan’s population had not been overly interested in the talk of a visit. As international media pumped out headlines and op-eds, domestic news prioritized local elections, a long-running heatwave and celebrity news. In one bulletin, Pelosi didn’t even make the top half. Having fun with it, some commentators bet bags of rice that she wouldn’t visit. Commenting on Pelosi’s Taiwan rendezvous, David Anderson, editor of Pressenza International Media in an opinion editorial wrote: On August 2nd, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-level U.S. official to visit Taiwan since 1997, against all warnings from China and and from American officials, who said it could lead to more aggressive military posturing. -Advertisement- The objective of the visit was not clear, besides making a stand against China with the usual “democracy” rhetoric. What will America gain by this visit? Nothing. There is nothing to win from this type of bullying, but very much to lose. After Ukraine’s proxy war with Russia, it seems as if Taiwan is becoming the focus in a proxy war between the US and China. That would be suicidal, as the US can not go to war in any form with China. We have already experienced the unforeseen consequences of the present conflict in Ukraine, which has impacted the world’s food and oil supplies. A conflict with China would have a hundred times more consequences that could take the White-West to a point of no return. -Advertisement- The world has changed drastically in the past 100 years, yet some of our politicians have not, and Pelosi is the perfect illustration of that. They carry the old mentality of power, control, and forcing everyone to adopt their worldview. In the world today, we are mainly interdependent on each other and there is no going back. As we saw with a small country like Ukraine, whose war has disrupted the lives of maybe a billion people across the globe. It is very easy to justify our differences, to go against others: Russia against the EU and US, Democrats against Republicans. It’s a mental form that defines everything from the rich against the poor to the tensions between the US and China. But his form has reached its limit. As Ariane Weinberger argued in her study The 12 Steps, -Advertisement- “Despite the conservative tendencies of our rulers and those who still believe in them, there is no denying that human consciousness has grown with globalization. In addition, with the recent events of the pandemic and planetary confinement, it is hard to ignore that the planet is ONE”. This world is crying for new forms, which some call a paradigm shift, but mainly a new world is emerging in which a different way of structuring is required, one which leaves behind all of the references from the past that correspond to a different time in humanity’s process…”. -Advertisement- Meanwhile, Chinese newspaper The Global Times in a report of August 5, 2022 said: China on Friday [August 5] announced eight countermeasures in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s highly provocative visit to the island of Taiwan, including canceling China-US theater commanders talk, defense policy coordination talks, military maritime security consultative mechanism and suspending cooperation on illegal immigration repatriation, drug control and climate change. It also announced Friday to sanction Pelosi and her immediate family members as she insisted on visiting Taiwan in disregard of China’s serious concerns and firm opposition, making her the highest-ranking US politician sanctioned by China. Analysts said that all of China’s countermeasures are “unprecedented” and “very necessary” and they showcased China’s strong opposition to the US’ violation of its bottom line. They warned that cancellations of exchange mechanisms of the two militaries at multiple levels may lead to more potential clashes if the US keeps making provocations, and US politicians should stop maniac actions and stop sowing chaos around the world. -Advertisement- The eight countermeasures made by China are listed as canceling China-US theater commanders talks, China-US defense policy coordination talks (DPCT) and China-US military maritime consultative agreement (MMCA) meetings. Also, they include suspending China-US cooperation on the repatriation of illegal immigrants; suspending China-US cooperation on legal assistance in criminal matters; suspending China-US cooperation against transnational crimes; suspending China-US counter-narcotics cooperation, and suspending China-US talks on climate change. -Advertisement- Commenting on Pelosi’s Taiwan trip, Scott Ritter (Ritter), a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer told The Global Times: “US interests, in terms of foreign and national security policy, are not the prerogative of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Pelosi, like other senior members of Congress from both chambers, are consulted on critical issues, and of course Congress is empowered to hold hearings during which it can ask questions of administration officials. Congress also has the power of the purse — control of the budget — which can be used to influence policy. But in the end, it is the President who is the ultimate decision-maker regarding policy formulation and implementation and, as such, the ultimate arbiter as to what constitutes “the national interest”. “Seen in this light, Pelosi’s trip did not conform to existing State Department policy positions, was deemed disruptive by the Department of Defense, and was practically disavowed by the White House. Pelosi was very much a rogue agent, and as such her visit was not in line with US interests. Moreover, given the harsh reaction from China, it is difficult to articulate a case where Pelosi’s visit could be construed as serving US interests”. -Advertisement- Martin Jacques, a former senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, and a visiting professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and a senior fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University in an opinion editorial wrote: Donald Trump’s election as US president in November 2016 marked the end of over four decades of relative stability in US-China relations. Ever since, it has been downhill all the way with barely a pause. Five years have passed and we have seen two US presidents. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that relations are in freefall, but the relationship is patently now unhinged. Predictability has been replaced by uncertainty. Trust has evaporated. It is impossible to predict what the state of the relationship will be after the US congressional elections in November, or after the next presidential election in 2024. The huge uncertainty surrounding the much-mooted visit by Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan this week summed up the present highly charged and intensely volatile nature of US-China relations. It is a salutary fact that neither President Xi Jinping nor even President Joe Biden knew whether that visit would actually go ahead. -Advertisement- This is a very dangerous situation. The relationship has lost all