Stan R. Mitchell: The view from the front podcast for 7-26-22.

Stan R. Mitchell: The view from the f... Stan R. Mitchell: The view from the f...

Stan R. Mitchell: The view from the front podcast for 7-26-22.

Hi friend,

Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I wanted to start this edition with a bit of an update on China, which is something we’ve discussed in the past, but also often gets pushed to the background because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

There are a couple of things that really bring China back into focus for this edition. (Okay, technically, I wanted to cover this in Friday’s edition, but that ended up getting rushed and cut short because I had to go catch a flight.)

Nonetheless, the first item that brings China back into the news was the item below.

NBC News reported that FBI Director Christopher Wray, standing alongside the director of Britain’s MI5, the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency, argued that China was taking steps to protect its economy following an attack or invasion.

“In our world, we call that kind of behavior a clue,” Wray said, adding that were an invasion to happen, “it would represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen.”

So, the first point is you’ve got the FBI Director saying he’s seeing intelligence that China is making some moves to protect its economy. And oh, by the way, he makes this comment on foreign soil next to one of America’s staunchest allies.

To me, that’s no accident.

At the same time, we need to re-visit the news that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be visiting Taiwan.

Stan R. Mitchell @StanRMitchellChina says it will take ‘forceful measures’ if Pelosi visits Taiwan

China says it will take ‘forceful measures’ if Pelosi visits TaiwanChina’s Foreign Ministry said there would be consequences for the United States if House Speaker Pelosi visits Taiwan.washingtonpost.com

July 19th 2022

I originally shared this in the July 19th edition. And as a reminder, Pelosi will be the first House speaker to visit Taiwan since Speaker Newt Gingrich did back in 1997.

But in the week that has passed since the news broke, there’s been a lot of increasing pressure for Pelosi NOT to visit.

This includes pressure from President Joe Biden and members of America’s highest military staff, which The Washington Post reported. (Hat tip to Derek Grossman for sharing it.)

From The Post story:

President Biden himself on Wednesday told reporters that “the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now” that Pelosi travels to Taiwan. Distrust between Washington and Beijing is at a heightened level, as China has acted with increased aggressiveness in recent encounters with the United States and allied military forces in the region.

And then on the flip side, you can already see that Biden and Pelosi are already being boxed in from folks saying they shouldn’t back down from China. Such as the tweet below:

Andrew Desiderio @AndrewDesiderioGOP Sen. Ben Sasse: “Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and President Biden should make it abundantly clear to Chairman Xi that there’s not a damn thing the Chinese Communist Party can do about it.”

July 25th 2022

20 Retweets61 Likes

And even this interview from the former Secretary of Defense under former President Donald Trump. Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defense under Trump, said in an interview on CNN that China should not have any say over where American officials travel. (See video below.)

@MarkTEsper on Speaker Pelosi's planned travel to Taiwan next month: \"I think China should not have any say over where American officials travel. I think if the Speaker wants to go she should go.\"\n\nPres. Biden said last week the military does not believe the trip is a good idea. ","username":"brikeilarcnn","name":"Brianna Keilar","date":"Mon Jul 25 13:12:18 +0000 2022","photos":[{"img_url":"https://substackcdn.com/image/upload/... Twitter avatar for @brikeilarcnn