Pelosi’s Taiwan diplomacy generates a prediction and a warning

NEWS AND OPINION:

So what could come from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan? Harry Kazianis, a longtime observer of global affairs, has a thought or two.

“One thing is clear: the U.S. military, having fought for two decades in the Middle East, is not ready for a high-intensity war waged over the vast expanses of the Indo-Pacific against China. In fact, Beijing has spent the last several decades building out its military machine for a moment just like this — to fight the U.S. Navy in its home waters over Taiwan or the South China Sea,” Mr. Kazianis said in a statement shared with Inside the Beltway.

“China has thousands of cruise, ballistic, and now hypersonic missiles prepped and ready to strike Navy aircraft carriers and bases all over Asia,” he continued.

“If tensions were to spike over the Pelosi visit to Taiwan, China’s military strategy would be to fire a massive ‘bolt from the blue’ utilizing its thousands of missiles and do so much damage to U.S. forces and warships in the region that Washington would have no choice but to allow Beijing to dominate the region,” Mr. Kazianis said.

“If Washington decided to fight on, the U.S. Navy would have to fight its way into the region while taking fire from Chinese missiles that can strike from thousands of miles away,” he concluded.

Mr. Kazianis served as senior director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest and held senior policy or editorial positions at The Heritage Foundation, The Diplomat magazine and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is now president of the Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank.

THE PELOSI PRESS

Political analysts from both sides of the aisle continue to ponder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s motivation to visit Taiwan on her own.

There’s also a lot of nervous murmuring from diplomatic sources in multiple nations. And of course, the news media has been all over the story from the moment Mrs. Pelosi’s planned visit was first reported way back on July 19. Here are a few headlines from the last 24 hours;

“Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan is high-risk, low-reward” (The Boston Globe); “The damage from Pelosi’s unwise visit to Taiwan must be contained” (The Washington Post); “China furious after Pelosi lands in Taiwan, promises ‘all necessary measures’ to defend itself” (Fox News); “Pelosi arrives in Taiwan, defying Beijing” (Associated Press); “Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan highlights America’s incoherent strategy” (The Economist); “Nancy Pelosi arrives in Taiwan as China ratchets up military activity” (Financial Times); “Pelosi arrives in Taiwan, defying China threats and US military warnings” (New York Post); “Pelosi arrives in Taiwan, defying China warnings” (Wall Street Journal); and “China sends warships to surround Taiwan amid Pelosi visit” (Politico).

YET ANOTHER PARTISAN DIVIDE

Concern about monkeypox among Americans is increasing. Not surprisingly, there’s a political dynamic at work here.

“The share of Americans who are somewhat or very concerned about a monkeypox epidemic in the U.S. has risen to 45% from 34% since late May; the share who are very concerned is up to 13% from 7%. The share of Americans who are somewhat or very worried about experiencing monkeypox is 31%, up from 25% in late May; 11% are very worried, up from 7%,” advises an analysis from YouGov, which is now tracking the trend.

“Democrats are more likely than Republicans to be following news about monkeypox, to be concerned about an epidemic, and to be worried about experiencing it themselves,” the pollster said.

And the numbers: About two-thirds of Democrats — 62% — are concerned about monkeypox. Among Republicans, 25% are concerned. Another 35% of Democrats say they are not concerned, compared to 74% of Republicans who also have no concern.

The survey of 1,500 U.S. adults was conducted July 23-26.

FOXIFIED

Fox News finished up July as the third most-watched network in the entire television realm trailing only broadcast powerhouses CBS and NBC, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Fox News has bested cable news rivals CNN and MSNBC for the 18th month in a row, drawing an average 2.1 million viewers during July, compared to 1.3 million who chose MSNBC and 731,000 who went with CNN.

Fox News also aired 82 of the top 100 cable news programs during the month.

The standout program continues to be “The Five,” which averages an audience of 3.2 million viewers, followed by “Tucker Carlson Tonight” with 3.1 million. Late-night programming also triumphed. “Gutfeld!” averaged nearly 2 million nightly viewers in July, outpacing both ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”

SO WHAT ARE YOU AGAIN?

“Are you a Faith and Flag Conservative? Progressive Left? Or somewhere in between?” asks the Pew Research Center in a public advisory.

“Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match, compared with a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 U.S. adults by Pew Research Center. You may find some of these questions are difficult to answer. That’s OK. In those cases, pick the answer that comes closest to your view, even if it isn’t exactly right,” the pollster said.

A lot of people want to know what kind of a political animal they are, perhaps.

This outreach has been on the Pew Research website for six months — but remains No 2. in the pollster’s top-10 most read articles, second only to an analysis titled “Gun deaths in the U.S.: 10 key questions answered.”

Curious? Find the quiz at pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-typology.

POLL DU JOUR

• 13% of U.S. adults would describe themselves as “very conservative” when it comes to their political viewpoint.

• 19% would describe themselves as “conservative.”

• 30% say they are “moderate” on political views.

• 16% say they are “liberal.”

• 10% say they are “very liberal.”

• 13% are not sure about their political viewpoint.

SOURCE: A YouGov poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted July 23-26.

• Helpful information to jharper@washingtontimes.com.