Pelosi's visit to Taiwan - Who's provoking whom?

Below is an edited article from the Huffington Post on Nancy Pelosi's potential visit to Taiwan, which is heightening economic, political and military tensions between the US and China. 

One has to wonder at the gall of the US in warning China not to escalate tensions after the US, NATO and other US allies just conducted the largest naval war exercises in the Pacific since the Chinese revolution in 1949, which is being followed by Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. Is the US provoking the Chinese (rather than the other way around), just as it did, and continues to do, in Eastern Europe with regard to expanding NATO and supplying massive amounts of armaments so that the Ukrainians can "bleed Russia dry"? And as it is doing with regard to ramping up its nuclear arsenal and new deployments of nuclear weapons? And as it is doing with regard to the Iranian nuclear arms deal (will Joe Biden be the father of the Iranian nuclear bomb?) and the Middle East in general by cozying up to the Saudis, etc.

My first reaction is to credit all this bellicose activity to an attempt to provide Biden and the Democrats with a convenient distraction from their total failure to pass meaningful legislation to deal with the domestic crises (inflation, recession, renewed pandemic, etc.) we face. But the idea that milk toast Joe could reinvigorate the party as a "wartime President" seems a bit ludicrous.

No, these actions have a much deeper and scarier origin. The Empire of Liberty is facing an economic and political challenge to its system of "rules based order" and is responding by falling back on the one area where its power is still dominant - military force. It's what declining empires always resort to and the result is always the same - massive suffering for working people in both the "colonies" and the homefront. But, in our current situation, escalating military threats (and actions) present us with an even more dangerous path - to nuclear annihilation. If that's not enough, they divert resources which might be used to head off the other existential crises, climate change and  pandemics, not to mention rising poverty and hunger throughout an increasingly destabilized world.

For those of us who live in "the belly of the beast" we must focus our efforts at combatting this drive to use military force to protect the interests, not of the American people, but of those who profit off the continuing worldwide domination of the Empire of Liberty. We must stand in solidarity with those struggling to free themselves from the Empire; we must oppose military intervention in conflicts between the US and other Empires (while being clear that we do NOT support these rising empires, either) and we must fight to redirect the resources currently being provided to the war machine, aka the military/industrial complex, towards dealing with the crises the American people and the people of the world are facing.

From the Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s White House warned China on Monday not to use House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s likely visit to Taiwan to escalate tensions with the United States or the island that considers itself an independent nation.

“There is no reason for Beijing to turn a potential visit consistent with long-standing U.S. policy into some sort of crisis or conflict or use it as a pretext to increase aggressive military activity in or around the Taiwan Strait,” said John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications with the White House National Security Council, during a White House briefing room appearance. “And yet over the weekend, even before Speaker Pelosi arrived in the region, China conducted a live fire exercise.”

“Nothing about this potential visit — potential visit, which by the way, has precedent — would change the status quo, and the world should reject any PRC effort to use it to do so,” he said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “We will not take the bait or engage in saber-rattling. At the same time, we will not be intimidated. We will keep operating in the seas and the skies of the Western Pacific as we have for decades.” (The US's "rules based order" give us the right to project our military power anywhere we chose to.)

Under China’s current dictator, Xi Jinping, mainland China has become increasingly aggressive in claiming sovereignty over Taiwan with military shows of force as well as bellicose rhetoric.

According to China’s state news agency, Xi warned against Pelosi’s visit during a phone call with Biden last week. “If you play with fire you get burned. I hope the U.S. side can see this clearly,” Xi reportedly said.