China's threats over Pelosi's Asia trip escalate, military aircraft fly close to Taiwan Strait's median line
U.S. Relations only grow more strained as China makes thinly-veiled threats as House Speaker Pelosi is set to arrive in Taipei on Tuesday
Pictured: Nancy Pelosi in Chinatown in Feb. 2020 - demonstrating she isn’t the sharpest chopstick in the box by telling people to go to restaurants right as covid-19 was hitting its first massive domestic outbreak.
Everyone seems to be flexing their military muscle in anticipation of U.S. Speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan.
Taiwan themselves conducted live fire drills, while China released some overproduced propaganda piece, ramped up Naval patrols, and conducted their own live fire drills, in addition to their ominous fly-by with warplanes straying very close to the median line in the Taiwan Strait.
Meanwhile, the United States still has the USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group positioned in the South China Sea as a deterrent against aggression from China ahead of Pelosi's visit on Tuesday.
Things are looking increasingly grim, especially when you consider China's increasing penchant for making their military might known.
In the summer of 2021, the United States detected a hypersonic missile launched from China that, according to General John Hyten at the time, circled the earth and then launched a 'hypersonic glide vehicle' that impacted its intended target back in China's territory.
In this respect, China has something we don't - hypersonic missile technology. United States hypersonic missile technology is still in its infancy, seeing as a test conducted in late June 2022 failed due to a problem after ignition.
So either we're pretending we don't have it, or China and Russia both have weapons we don't. Not an encouraging thought, given mounting geopolitical tensions seemingly being brought to a head with Pelosi's Asia trip, at least when it comes to China.
Pelosi is leading a Congressional delegation on the Asia trip, which stopped in Singapore on Monday. And while the official schedule makes no mention of a visit to Taiwan, Taiwanese News Media has reported Pelosi and the Congressional delegation's arrival on Tuesday evening, local time.
I think I've made it clear I'm not Pelosi's biggest fan, but letting China potentially punk the United States Congressional delegation out of their visit to Taiwan would be a massive show of weakness that we cannot afford.
Whitehouse sources familiar with the President's feelings on the whole matter demonstrated that Pelosi's insistance on this trip wasn't welcomed warmly, with the President having severe misgivings about the whole trip. Still, he can't publicly say any of that, because that again would be seen as tantamount to cowering before China's bluster.
The second it was announced, the trip had to go forward, no matter what. Letting China have their way would lead to them being emboldened further.
I will say, though; I don't believe China will do anything, and here's why. China's largest real estate company, Evergrande, is currently saddled with $300 billion in debt. This, in addition to the ongoing banking crisis in the nation which has seen smaller banks in several provinces having been speculated to be entirely insolvent.
I reported on China's usage of tanks back on July 21st here. One of my snarkier articles but hey, I was having fun with it.
Anyway, this crisis goes back to at least April, when Chinese media reported that $1.5 billion in deposits from banks in the Henan Province were entirely frozen in response to the identification of high-risk lending practices. And this is just what we know about.
If China is reporting it at all, that means the problem is likely far more widespread than they have reported, and they couldn’t very well ignore such a story with massive protests and the fact that they literally sent out tanks to stifle any potential bank runs by citizens.
That number is ludicrously small when you consider that their rural bank network has more than 3,800 banks all in this same bracket, lending as much as $740 billion to small businesses back in 2020 in a bid to stabilize the job market. The real rub with this is the fact that their projected returns are just 0.39% on all that money. They’re operating on such small profit margins that any contraction of the Chinese economy will effectively put said loans under water.
It took until July 15 for Henan Province’s Banking and Insurance regulator to initiate repayments of deposits to citizens, with a round structure being employed. It took until Aug. 1 for the third round of payments to go out.
So as you can see, China has several economic hurdles to overcome without a hot war with the United States, coupled with continued lockdowns due to renewed covid outbreaks in the country only exacerbating such things.
It would be pretty silly for either nation to start a hot war that will cost all involve trillions of dollars and take who knows how many lives because of a drunken house speaker and her merry band of idiots wanting to skip work here at home to get a free trip to Asia on the taxpayers’ dime.
But I’m sure when it’s all said and done she will be able to do a nice campaign ad about how ‘fearless’ she is.
If she wanted to show courage, she could just walk down a street in her San Francisco district barefooted. The risk of a needle stick or stepping in human feces would be more than enough to convey her bravery.
Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed this article then consider subscribing here and following me on my social media accounts.