By Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein on August 3, 2022
Nancy Pelosi, photo: Bill Hackwell
The visit of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and the provocation to China that it entails, can only be interpreted as one more action in the escalation of tensions that Washington wants to generate in the world in order to sustain its global hegemony.
The visit pursued two objectives, one of a conjunctural and tactical nature and the other structural and strategic. The first aims to respond to and solve the desperate situation of the Democratic Party in view of the November congressional elections and their projection to the 2024 presidential elections, in which it seems that the party of Biden and Pelosi will lose control of the US Congress first and of the White House later if everything remains as it is so far, when the president’s discredit is the highest for someone of his investiture since the end of the Second World War.
Biden and Pelosi, two octogenarians who are already “playing the discounts” in their political life, in that condition, when they no longer have anything to lose, are assuming the “sacrifice” to try to preserve the Democratic party from the discredit in which it is immersed under their leadership, after having been at the pinnacle of glory during the “Obama era”.
Facing the structural aspect is more complex. The economic decline of the United States, which has been going on for the past 40 years, is much more difficult to reverse and may never be reversed. Until now, the dollar-producing machine that Washington exclusively owns, its unquestionable military might and the unparalleled dominance of the cultural media complex that it manages at will, allows it to evade the crisis, or at least hide it from the public eye. However, first the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine have exposed the shortcomings of a system that was not even capable of protecting its own citizens or defending them from the evils afflicting the planet.
Precisely, the structural character of this crisis is due to the inability of the United States to manage the situation, dragging behind it the setbacks faced by the capitalist system, revealing its inability to solve the most pressing problems of humanity and lead it forward on a path of development, peace and stability.
In this situation, the U.S. elite is trying to recover from the economic crisis by activating its main industry; the arms industry. It is worth saying that the U.S. domestic market is by far the largest in the world, producing $41.93 billion between October 2016 and September 2017 (I did not get a more updated figure but it is known that since the pandemic sales have doubled). The marginalized conditions of millions of citizens, racism, xenophobia and the incentivization of political conflicts stimulated by the media and the “cultural” apparatus, have contributed to the growing increase of this business in a country where it is possible to buy an AR-15 assault rifle online at a price of around $450, lower than that of a smart phone.
But it is in the entire planet where the United States does its real business: 800 military bases, 11 aircraft carriers, 20 amphibious assault ships, 21 cruisers, 72 destroyers, 23 landing ships, 68 submarines, in addition to 3,900 aircraft structured in seven fleets and 9 regional commands and commands, as well as military blocs such as NATO, AUKUS, TIAR and others that it has formed with subordinate countries, are responsible for encouraging conflict and, at the very least, guaranteeing the prosperity of the business in the name of freedom and democracy.
Just today, it was announced the sale by the United States to the United Arab Emirates of a batch of THAAD anti-aircraft interceptor missiles, two launch control stations and two tactical operations complexes for a total value of $2,245 million. Likewise, the possible sale of Patriot air defense systems and military equipment to Saudi Arabia for a total of more than 3 billion dollars was approved. Thus, it is easy to understand the functions of a U.S. president, given that in his recent visit to the region, Biden did not achieve any positive results either in political matters or in those related to the energy market (key for any leader who travels to this part of the planet).
Now there is much talk about the war in Ukraine, of course in Europe, but little mention is made of the war conflicts in other parts of the planet caused precisely by the imperialist desire for expansion and global domination. It is worth saying that in Europe, NATO is stimulating the aggressiveness of Kosovo against Serbia and the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia. When you look at the map, you can see that from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, NATO’s eastward expansion is the best business to sell arms to support the battered U.S. economy.
Likewise, other armed confrontations are active today as a consequence of almost 5 centuries of occupation and colonial plundering. In this regard, we should mention 5 dynamic conflicts in Central and Western Asia and 11 others (involving 14 countries) in Africa, which show the reality of this trend. I want to point out that none of these outbreaks of war are manifesting themselves in Latin America and the Caribbean, despite the attempts of Washington and the local oligarchies to generate them. Notwithstanding the efforts to conceive conflicts in our region, the declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, approved at the second CELAC Summit in Havana in January 2014, has managed to impose itself.
The political elites of the United States (government and congress) as instruments of the Military Industrial Complex, play their role in this sense. To the incentive produced for the arms business (the largest in the world) by the three war conflicts in Europe, the 5 in Asia and the 11 in Africa, not counting the occupation of Palestine by Israel and the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic by Morocco, we had to add the Asia-Pacific.
But this did not start now. It is a state policy and bipartisan in nature: the declaration of Obama’s “Asian pivot” doctrine, Trump’s trade war policy against China and the declaration of Russia as a threat and China as the greatest challenge to Western hegemony, agreed at the recent NATO Summit in Madrid are the political foundation for the 21st century strategic confrontation that the United States expects to wage with China in the Asia-Pacific region. And in this scheme, the encouragement of conflict in the seas surrounding China is fundamental and Taiwan’s role as an instrument of disruption is indispensable.
This is what explains Mrs. Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, in the immediate term, to try to reverse the popularity figures of Biden and the Democratic Party and in the long term, to prevent the economic debacle that is looming over the United States, given China’s economic, financial, technological and scientific superiority manifest, which implies the loss -by peaceful means- of the planetary hegemony of the United States. That is what they will try to stop by any means necessary, including military.
However, for those who assumed that the Chinese response would be to shoot down Pelosi’s plane, invade Taiwan with a naval force, or devastate the island with a rain of hypersonic missiles, it must be said that they know nothing about China, its philosophy, its history, or its political and diplomatic practice. On this point, I agree with Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin who opined that: “the real crisis over Taiwan could begin after […] Nancy Pelosi returns to the United States”. Rogin was more explicit when he said: “The biggest fallout from Pelosi’s visit will come after she returns home, over weeks, months and years”.
That is the essence of the Chinese response. As always it has to be seen over time. Unlike the West that needs to generate immediate headlines in the run-up to the next election, China, in keeping with its philosophy and tradition, will build a long-term response…over months and years as Rogin says.
The Chinese response, which will begin to be verified tomorrow, will manifest itself in different ways. First, those in the military realm. The operations that are being carried out and that formally begin on Thursday 4 and end on Monday 8 are an expression of the largest deployment ever seen in China for an exercise of these characteristics. It includes the use of aviation, ground forces and strategic level logistics, as well as the deployment of China’s most advanced rocket system, which includes the DF-17 hypersonic missile that flies at 12,300 km/hour and has a range of 2,500 km. Taiwan is 120 km from the Chinese mainland coast. It must be said without euphemism that if China wished, Taiwan would disappear in less than a minute.
The exercise is being conducted in 6 naval zones to the south, east, northeast and northwest of Taiwan, to the west is not necessary, there is the Chinese mainland. That includes the airspace overlying the maritime domain where the operations are being conducted. Also without euphemism, Taiwan is surrounded by sea and air. Just yesterday, Taiwan’s defense ministry “denounced” it in a communiqué stating that China “has invaded territorial waters and adjacent areas” of the island adding that “Chinese drills violate United Nations rules and amount to a blockade of Taiwan’s air and maritime space.”
In this regard, two observations. The first: if the “territory of Taiwan” has been invaded, why did the West do nothing? It is clear that the United States was interested in generating a provocation that would disrupt order and stability in the region; it has no concern for the security of the citizens of Taiwan, just as it has no concern or interest in that of the Ukrainians. And the 20 hours that Mrs. Pelosi spent on the island were enough to prove it. It should also be noted that they use the same concept (invasion) that the West uses to characterize Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.
Second question, if Taiwanese territory is surrounded and blockaded by air and sea according to the lexicon used by Taiwan’s defense ministry, how could Mrs. Pelosi’s plane have left the island safely? It is clear, China’s target was never her, the Chinese government is serious, does not resort to terrorism to assert its rights and also has (as it has shown for millennia) infinite patience to wait for things to happen when the conditions are given.
Having said this, we can understand that the Chinese response will manifest itself in different ways: the first one, the economic one, measures in this area began to be taken only yesterday. It should be remembered that the balance of trade between China and Taiwan is in Taiwan’s favor and that while it is true that in the 1980s, when the policy of reform and opening up began, Taiwan was very important for China, it could be said that today, forty years later, it is the other way around. The decisions that China takes in this matter in order to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity will have an impact on Taiwan’s economy that the West will not be able to make up for as it cannot do in Ukraine.
Finally, and here is what is truly strategic. If there might have been any hesitation in some sectors of the Chinese elite regarding the need to establish a strategic alliance with Russia, those doubts have been dispelled. Russia’s support for China at this juncture was immediate and forceful. China, which still in 2019 thought that it could develop its economic and political model in peace and harmony with the United States, “came down from that cloud” when the violent and separatist leaders of Hong Kong were received in the U.S. Congress where they were offered financial, logistical, political and diplomatic assistance to give continuity to their secessionist revolt. Do you know who made that commitment and led the support to those terrorists? None other than Nancy Pelosi.
Today, after the agreements of the NATO Summit in Madrid and this affront by the United States to China, it must have become clear to the leadership of Beijing that the ultimate goal of NATO expansion is China and that the only way to avoid it is to build and solidify a strategic alliance with Russia to make the Eurasian space the territory from which the construction of a world of peace, prosperity and cooperation among the peoples of the planet will start.
The Bible tells us that Abraham, being old and childless, asked God to grant him the possibility of begetting. The Lord accepted and performed the miracle so that Sarah, Abraham’s wife, conceived their son Isaac at the age of 90. Now, in this situation it was not necessary to implore God, Mrs. Pelosi’s arrogance and imperial mood made her, at 82 years of age, give birth and make strong the strategic alliance between China and Russia that will mark the future of humanity for some time to come.
Source: La Pupila Insomne, translated by Resumen Latinoamericano – US