Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi must be congratulated for being steadfast in her decision to visit Taiwan, in spite of opposition from US President Joe Biden. Biden was rather circumspect about Pelosi’s visit, saying that it may exacerbate tensions with China. But Pelosi went ahead nonetheless. In fact, there is no doubt the visit has escalated tensions in the Taiwan Strait, with China carrying out live fire drills within Taiwan’s territorial waters and with US Navy warships hovering in the region. However, there is no escaping the fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping may have overplayed his hand and may now be looking for a face saver. China’s rhetoric, whenever it comes to Taiwan, has always been high-pitched and threatening. Even during Xi Jinping’s conversation with Joe Biden last year in November, the Chinese President warned that Taiwan was an inalienable part of China and whoever tried to change that or tried “to use Taiwan to contain China” “will get burnt”. This playing with fire and getting burnt bit made a reappearance this time too, with Xi Jinping quoted as saying, “Those who play with fire will eventually get burnt.” Along with this, threats were emanating from PRC spokespersons and several minions of the Communist regime floating around social media, like the former editor of the Communist mouthpiece, Global Times, who warned, if Pelosi “dares to stop in Taiwan, it will be the moment to ignite the powder keg of the situation in the Taiwan Straits” and that military action was being planned to give a reply to her misadventure. As a result, Pelosi’s US Air Force aircraft apparently even took a detour to avoid coming in the direct line of Chinese fire. However, from promising to start World War III, to banning the export of sand and imposing a few sanctions on Taiwan, is quite a comedown for the fire-breathing dragon, and that is what has happened. But then Xi Jinping’s fundamental mistake was taking Joe Biden’s conciliatory tone as symptomatic of the weakness of US democracy. Joe Biden’s attention has been focused on Russia ever since the invasion of Ukraine in February this year. With his attention focused elsewhere—the Quad moves notwithstanding—balancing the situation in a manner so that there is no escalation has been his approach towards China. But the Chinese bully takes conciliation as a sign of weakness. Hence, it was but natural that the Chinese thought that some comical-sounding threats—a hallmark of China’s wolf warrior diplomacy under Xi Jinping—would scare the adversary into submission. Instead, when news leaked that Pelosi may be going to Taiwan, the spotlight on China’s bluster led to the hardening of positions on the American side, and there was no turning back. There was bipartisan consensus that the American superpower could not be seen to be bending in front of an authoritarian Communist regime. It says a lot about American democracy that even the President had to fall in line when there was consensus that a trip to Asia by the Congressional delegation, comprising both Democrats and Republicans, and led by the Speaker of the House, must include Taiwan in its itinerary. As a result, Xi Jinping ended up losing his face, which is not a happy thing to happen in a culture that lays great emphasis on not losing face.
Now that Pelosi has visited Taiwan and talked in glowing terms about the strength of Taiwan’s democracy, what next? There is some speculation that short of going to war, China will continue to keep the Taiwan Strait in a heightened state of militarization like the way it has kept the Line of Actual Control, where both Indian and Chinese troops are standing in an eyeball to eyeball stand-off for over two years. But times are bad for the Chinese economy, and sustaining two fronts may be an expensive affair even for Xi Jinping. As for an invasion of Taiwan, while no one knows what a dictator’s hurt ego may goad him to do, the fact is, Taiwan is not a pushover—it is definitely not Ukraine. It has the capacity to inflict a body-blow to the Chinese, be it through cyberwarfare or through a kinetic conflict. Plus, any invasion is likely to draw the Americans into the conflict as the latter are bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to help the Taiwanese. Xi Jinping surely would not like to get involved in a kinetic conflict with the US. Hence, even Xi is likely to think twice before launching an actual invasion of Taiwan. He may instead continue with his efforts to weaken Taiwan from the inside, insidiously, by carrying out a political warfare, which is unrestricted and all-encompassing in nature.