….the focus on Pelosi\u2019s visit is misplaced. The important question is why China responded not just by denouncing the trip, but with import and export bans, cyberattacks, and military exercises that represented a major escalation over anything it had previously done to punish and intimidate Taiwan.<\/p>\n
None of this was inevitable. The Chinese leadership had options. It could have ignored or downplayed Pelosi\u2019s visit. What we saw was a reaction \u2013 more accurately, an overreaction \u2013 of choice. The scale and complexity of the response indicates that it had long been planned, suggesting that if the Pelosi trip had not taken place, some other development would have been cited as a pretext to \u201cjustify\u201d China\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s increasingly fraught internal political and economic situation goes a long way toward explaining Xi\u2019s reaction. His priority is to be appointed to an unprecedented third term as leader of the Communist Party of China; but the country\u2019s economic performance, for decades the principal source of legitimacy for China\u2019s leaders, can no longer be counted on as growth slows, unemployment rises, and financial bubbles burst. Xi\u2019s insistence on maintaining a zero-COVID policy is also drawing criticism domestically and reducing economic growth.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, it appears that Xi is turning to nationalism as a substitute. When it comes to generating popular support in China, nothing competes with asserting the mainland\u2019s sovereignty over Taiwan.<\/p>\n