Abandoning Taiwan, or Gained by Global Climate – Ecstatic about it?

Essay by Eric Worrall

China’s suspension of climate cooperation, in response to Nanci Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwanis giving those concerned about climate change a taste of the hooligan geopolitical bullying that Taiwan has endured over the years.

China suspends climate change cooperation with US and punishes Nancy Pelosi in retaliation for Taiwan visit

Lawrence Chung in Taipei Teddy in Hong Kong and Amber Wang in beijing
Published: 11:56 pm, August 5, 2022

China has suspended cooperation with the United States in the fight against climate change as part of a series of measures to respond to climate change. Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwanwhich also includes sanctions against the Speaker and her family.

Regular dialogues between the world’s two most powerful armed forces have also been cancelled, making it difficult for them to prevent accidental conflicts. Beijing also said it would stop cooperating in tackling drug trafficking, fighting crime and repatriating illegal immigrants.

Pelosi, second in the presidential line of succession, is the most senior US politician to have been sanctioned by China after she became the first speaker to visit the island in 25 years.

…

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, called the latest measures “unprecedentedly serious” and said Sino-US relations have now sunk to a rock bottom.

“The sanctions against Pelosi show how angry Beijing is,” he said.

But Shi noted that Beijing has used the word “suspension” in relation to climate change and other areas of cooperation, leaving the door open for the two sides to normalize relations “if Washington takes the first step”.

…

Read more: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3187927/china-suspends-climate-change-cooperation-us-and-sanctions

I can’t help but think that China miscalculated in making this threat.

China is forcing the Biden Administration to choose between competing values, US support for liberal democracies, and the Biden administration’s obsession with climate change. Democrats will have to admit that climate change is a secondary priority.

The unimaginable alternative, the ability of the United States to put a close friend and ally in the jaws of a monster, just to restore climate cooperation, would discredit the United States internationally.

There’s something oddly clumsy about this latest Chinese provocation. In my view, there have been suggestions over the years that some influential voices in the current Chinese regime may be struggling to understand the US political system, that they may be attempts to interpret US politics through the lens of a prism that Biden is an absolute tyrant like Xi. Xi Jinping. They must have seen and been confused about Pelosi openly challenges Biden, when she made her visit to Taiwan. Perhaps they worry that if Biden falls, Pelosi, who they must consider a Taiwan hawk, could replace him – a real possibility under US law.

Obviously this is highly speculative, but the Chinese regime may even hope this climate ultimatum will help Biden reassert his authority before Congress and, in return, provide China a clear path to attack Taiwan.

Correction (EW): h/t Tom Halla – Order of presidential succession controlled by U.S. law, not the constitution.