How Pelosi’s Visit Hurts Taiwan
[New from Moon of Alabama. This is what I’ve been saying all along about China ratcheting up a sea and air blockade step by step. Pelosi just gave China an excuse to accelerate the blockade.]
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/08/how-pelosis-visit-hurts-taiwan.html
When Nancy Pelosi made her ‘woke’ flight to Taiwan the U.S. seemed to hope for a Chinese military reaction to it. It positioned an aircraft carrier and two amphibious landing ships in the region. It also shipped additional fighter planes to Japan and South Korea.
Chinese and international commentators drew up potential scenarios for a clash like a forced diversion of Pelosi’s plane. However, the Chinese government kept its calm. The reintegration of Taiwan into China is not an urgent matter. It had planned for longer term measures designed to press the pro-independence government in Taiwan into obedience.
Chinese military exercises will now be held around the island without regard for what Taipei claims as its borders. These missile launches, sea and air maneuvers will not be threatening enough to cause a dangerous military confrontation. But they will be repeated over the next years and will steadily move closer and closer to Taiwan’s coast.
The median line between China and Taiwan, never officially recognized but adhered to, will now be ignored.
China essentially decided to boil the proverbial frog of Taiwanese independence by slowly, slowly increasing the pressure:
[rest at link]