Nancy Pelosi will have put the flammable wardrobe in her luggage.
The president of the Lower House of the US Congress, who started her Asian trip this Sunday, with a first stop in Singapore, plans to visit Taiwan, where she would arrive this Tuesday and spend the night in Taipei, the capital, turning a deaf ear to the warnings of Beijing and strain relations between China and the United States to the maximum. White House sources indicated that, although there is still no official confirmation, it seemed more than clear that Pelosi would proceed with that visit, contrary to the advice of President Joe Biden and the security teams.
Sources from both the United States and Taipei assured this Monday that Pelosi has contacted the island's government officials to visit them. After landing this Monday in Singapore, the displacement would take place this Tuesday, although the Democratic leader avoided talking about this visit when announcing the program of her journey. Before leaving she stated that she was going to visit Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. Her not citing Taiwan was seen not as a change of plans, but as a strategy.
At a regular press conference this Monday at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, China warned against "the appalling political impact of Pelosi's planned visit to a place that the Asian giant sees as part of its territory. Chinese diplomacy stressed that "the military will not sit idle" if Beijing feels that this hearing is a danger "to the sovereignty and territorial integrity"
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, already eloquently warned his counterpart Joe Biden last Thursday, in a telephone conversation of more than two hours, about the consequences that could derive from that visit. "Those who play with fire only get burned," they say Xi told him. Biden replied that he upholds the "one China" policy, but warned that he opposes any unilateral action to change the current status quo or undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
The White House and the Pentagon explained to Pelosi the risks she faced if she made this trip and the consequences for her country. The government has tried by all means to dissuade the person who is the third person in the chain of power in the US from avoiding her stopover on the island. A leader of this level has not visited Taiwan since 1997, when Newt Gingrich was the 'speaker' of the 'House'.
Gingrich, a Republican and staunch Trumpist today, challenged Democratic President Bill Clinton with whom he maintained an open war. Pelosi, on the other hand, has become a serious diplomatic problem for Biden, his friend and collaborator.
Officials from the Biden administration insisted that they had advocated that Pelosi not make that visit, given that this is a moment of maximum tension between the two countries. They directly asked her to avoid it, but the legislator considers that it is time to make a statement on the defense of human rights.
The animosity is mutual and comes from afar. Years ago Beijing declared Pelosi persona non grata, who was kicked out of Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protests.
The US intelligence services do not believe that the Chinese military will dare to shoot down the plane in which Pelosi travels, which is from the US Army. But if they fear that a communication problem or an error could cause a situation of conflict between both countries.
