Go, Nancy, Go!

…To Taiwan, that is.

U. S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has begun a trip to Asia and wants to visit Taiwan to demonstrate her support for Taiwan’s democracy and resistance to Communist China’s attempts at conquest.  President Biden doesn’t want her to do so for fear of antagonizing and provoking China.  But should Speaker Pelosi choose to visit Taiwan on her overseas trip, President Biden should nonetheless support her in every possible way, regardless of his own views on the matter.

Conservative Republicans consider Speaker Pelosi, along with the Obamas, the Clintons, George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren, to be one of the great liberal villains in American politics.  But throughout her political career, Speaker Pelosi has been a constant friend of democratic Taiwan, as well as of pro-democracy activists on the mainland, and a constant critic of Communist China and its efforts to destroy democracy in Taiwan or at home.  For example, in 1991, two years after the Chinese government’s massacre and repression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tienanmen Square (and after President George H. W. Bush shamefully sent emissaries to China to assure its government that its repressiveness would not damage Chinese-American relations), Representative Pelosi launched her own protest in Tienanmen Square by displaying a banner dedicated “To those who died for Democracy in China” before being chased away by the Chinese police.  

And Nancy Pelosi was only just getting started.  Throughout her career in Congress Representative Pelosi, with commendable consistency and total indifference to party politics, has:

• Fought for protections from their government of Chinese students studying in the United States and sympathetic to the democracy movement back home;
• Urged President Clinton to downgrade trade relations with China to punish its human rights abuses;
• Supported boycotts of the 2008 Summer Games and 2022 Winter Games of the Olympics; and
• Helped torpedo the appointment by President Obama of a high-ranking intelligence official thought to be too sympathetic to China.

As one of America’s foremost critics of China, Speaker Pelosi has earned the enmity of the Chinese government, which doesn’t want anyone so high-ranking in the U. S. Government to bestow legitimacy on Taiwan with a visit.  China has warned the United States of dire consequences should Speaker Pelosi try to visit Taiwan.  Mention has been made that “live-fire” military exercises may be conducted by China, and even that Speaker Pelosi’s plane, should it attempt to land in Taiwan, would be considered an invader and liable to be shot down.  Little wonder that President Biden has attempted to discourage Speaker Pelosi’s potential visit.

Given the threats made by China to Speaker Pelosi’s personal safety, nobody could fairly blame her should she try to avoid Taiwan.  But should she choose to go there anyway, President Biden should accept and facilitate her decision.  He should provide her aircraft with an escort of jet fighters ordered to use all means necessary to protect Speaker Pelosi from Chinese aggression.  To do so will help show China that the United States will stand up to its bullying, as well as honor the courage of Speaker Pelosi and the courage of the government and people of Taiwan committed to resisting Chinese aggression.

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Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton since 1987. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present).  He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014.  He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club, and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.