Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan was ill-advised at a precarious time for the world

If Nancy Pelosi went to Taiwan with the aim of making its people feel more secure, then her visit may be judged to have enjoyed mixed results at best.

It was a rare visit and president Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan was no doubt delighted to greet Speaker Pelosi, technically second only to vice-president Kamala Harris in seniority. But it is not obvious the visit enjoyed support from the White House, or signalled any substantial new commitment of American resources to the defence of Taiwan.

Ms Pelosi, in other words, was engaged in gesture politics, albeit of a lofty kind, and the gesture was taken to be an exceptionally rude one in Beijing, which has chosen to ignore the nuances of how far Speaker Pelosi was acting with the authority of President Biden.

There are few issues more likely to send Chinese officialdom into paroxysms of rage than Taiwan, and Speaker Pelosi must have known this. A politician of unusual strength of mind, she has a long record in defending the universal human rights of the Chinese people against their authoritarian government. Moreover, she has plenty of experience in understanding the diplomatic sensitivities involved in such an initiative as her official trip.

China has now effectively blockaded the island, surrounding it with warships, fighter jets and bombers, and fired live shells into Taiwan’s (unrecognised) territorial airspace. The people of Taiwan, no doubt proud and willing to fight for their freedom, must nonetheless be perturbed by this show of force. They are long used to China menacing them, often militarily, ever since the 1950s bombing campaigns in Quemoy and Matsu (a now forgotten flashpoint during the Cold War).

But China’s emergence as the world’s pre-eminent industrial power has made such threats harder to ignore. Under president Xi Jinping, China has become a more confident and assertive superpower even than in Mao’s time, with a global strategy centred on national unity and an international network of influence via the Belt and Road Initiative.

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With the Russian invasion of Ukraine still haunting the world, no one is quite ready to rule out President Xi emulating Vladimir Putin, and invading Taiwan by force. Even if things don’t deteriorate that badly, the situation is still gravely concerning. Quite apart from the safety of the Taiwanese people and stability in the region, Taiwan is a major exporter of the kind of advanced semiconductors that are necessary for numerous industries. A punitive blockade of Taiwan by China would further fuel global inflation and damage the livelihoods of millions of people.

The brutal geopolitical fact is that the global balance of power in recent decades has shifted away from the United States, and towards the rising economic and military power of China. Wearied by foreign engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now stretched by promises to support Ukraine, the US can no longer contemplate constraining both Russia and China, let alone engage them simultaneously.

Instead, the West is watching as China proclaims its “unending” friendship with Russia, is lukewarm on sanctions, and shows no signs of easing its persecution of the Uyghur Muslim and Tibetan people, or its violent intimidation of Taiwan. It is a precarious time for the world, we need more cool heads rather than confrontations.