I do not believe shooting down Pelosi's plane will be advantageous for China at all, although I also don't think the consequences will be all that terrible either. It will be one big step in the continuing deterioration of relations between China and the West, although not a game changer. What would happen is an esclation of public anger against China in the US and other Western countries, particularly the Anglo-sphere. Now, I know China is already viewed very negatively in the Anglo-sphere, but the extent that people actually give enough damn to do something about China is pretty modest. The West is experiencing severe economic problems of its own. Shooting down Pelosi's plane will increase the publics' willingness to increase military spending, and trade retaliation against China, despite the severe inflation and economic difficulties. Given the current environment in Western countries of elevated energy prices, high inflation, rising mortgage interest rates and falling real incomes, the vast majority of people would not care about China enough to want a much bigger military budget. Why would you want to change that? It is simply a matter of: why, when there is not much to be gained?
I am not saying China ought to put excessive weight on Western public opinion, which in any case is already negative. But Western perceptions of China should be sacrificed only when the gains are worth it. Shooting down Pelosi's plane just to make a point is not. Unifying Taiwan may very well be, if China feels it has the military certainty to pull this off. Because my view is that Chinese foreign policy is based on sound realpolitik and pragmatism, I believe China will not shoot down Pelosi's plane.
However, the same rationality cannot be said of the US. US foreign policy is partly pragmatic, but partly emotional and ideological. US politicians flaunt the role of values in diplomatic engagements. This reflects that politicians are incentivised to please voters, and also because voters are not incentivised to make well-informed decisions. According to mainstream Public Economics, individual voters are not incentivised to learn enough to make an informed vote, and this is because individual votes do not matter in determining the electoral outcome. There is virutally no chance of you personally casting the decisive vote, so why bother learning enough to make informed choices? So instead, when people cast their vote, they rely on emotions and mental heuristics (i.e. values). Politicians are incentivised to pander to these emotions to stay in power, especially in foreign policy, where rational players like the PRC will often have to make emotionally-unrewarding choices. This is why I think US foreign policy is inherently irrational, and this is dangerous for how they handle the Taiwan situation.
I do think China has escalation dominance insofar as the Taiwan issue is concerned. The Pentagon recognises it cannot prevail in a military confrontation in China's backyard. China does not have overall escalation dominance, given the economic leverage held by the West, but I actually think China is not too severely disadvantaged. The West has burned all bridges with Russia, who has all the cards in terms of natural resources. China holds an implicit economic threat over Western-aligned countries like Japan and South Korea. So, the threshold for China taking military action relative to perceived threat is probably quite low, and certainly much lower than it is viewed by professional Western diplomats (let alone by Western politicians catering to irrational voters).
This is where I see the danger for Taiwan. The West - especially the US - is fundamentally an irrational emotional moron when it comes to foreign policy. They do not know when to back down, and cannot back down. If Pelosi makes her visit, there would be a high likelihood that Beijing will consider it worthwhile to attack Taiwan and forcibly unify the country as soon as it has military certainty. There is a lot of benefit in holding out for a peaceful unification, but regular visits by senior US politicians could well convince Beijing that it is not worth pursing that anymore.
I am not saying China ought to put excessive weight on Western public opinion, which in any case is already negative. But Western perceptions of China should be sacrificed only when the gains are worth it. Shooting down Pelosi's plane just to make a point is not. Unifying Taiwan may very well be, if China feels it has the military certainty to pull this off. Because my view is that Chinese foreign policy is based on sound realpolitik and pragmatism, I believe China will not shoot down Pelosi's plane.
However, the same rationality cannot be said of the US. US foreign policy is partly pragmatic, but partly emotional and ideological. US politicians flaunt the role of values in diplomatic engagements. This reflects that politicians are incentivised to please voters, and also because voters are not incentivised to make well-informed decisions. According to mainstream Public Economics, individual voters are not incentivised to learn enough to make an informed vote, and this is because individual votes do not matter in determining the electoral outcome. There is virutally no chance of you personally casting the decisive vote, so why bother learning enough to make informed choices? So instead, when people cast their vote, they rely on emotions and mental heuristics (i.e. values). Politicians are incentivised to pander to these emotions to stay in power, especially in foreign policy, where rational players like the PRC will often have to make emotionally-unrewarding choices. This is why I think US foreign policy is inherently irrational, and this is dangerous for how they handle the Taiwan situation.
I do think China has escalation dominance insofar as the Taiwan issue is concerned. The Pentagon recognises it cannot prevail in a military confrontation in China's backyard. China does not have overall escalation dominance, given the economic leverage held by the West, but I actually think China is not too severely disadvantaged. The West has burned all bridges with Russia, who has all the cards in terms of natural resources. China holds an implicit economic threat over Western-aligned countries like Japan and South Korea. So, the threshold for China taking military action relative to perceived threat is probably quite low, and certainly much lower than it is viewed by professional Western diplomats (let alone by Western politicians catering to irrational voters).
This is where I see the danger for Taiwan. The West - especially the US - is fundamentally an irrational emotional moron when it comes to foreign policy. They do not know when to back down, and cannot back down. If Pelosi makes her visit, there would be a high likelihood that Beijing will consider it worthwhile to attack Taiwan and forcibly unify the country as soon as it has military certainty. There is a lot of benefit in holding out for a peaceful unification, but regular visits by senior US politicians could well convince Beijing that it is not worth pursing that anymore.
