“[I]t is our collected opinion that such a visit [to Taiwan] by Speaker Pelosi would be viewed in the most serious light by China,” wrote the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) in a July 30 memorandum to President Joe Biden. “China would react quite strongly, reflecting the reality that it would consider such a visit close to an existential threat warranting high risk of armed hostilities.”
The memo, posted to Antiwar.com, points to the enormous threat of sparking a confrontation inherent in Pelosi’s proposed visit, and the authors write that “the Speaker appears to be conducting unilateral diplomacy,” sidestepping the Presidency. “The U.S. military is in no position to engage in a large-scale military confrontation with China over Taiwan,” they assess. “The consequences of any miscalculation ... would be dire, in terms of the real possibility of a U.S. military defeat.”
“Simply put,” they write, “not only can we not prevail militarily over China ... but also the economic consequences [of a conflict] would be devastating to the global economy, including that of the United States.”
