The silent treatment.
Call it the diplomatic version of the Silent Treatment. Angry over Nancy Pelosi’s high-profile official visit to Taipei this week, Beijing announced this morning that they would cancel or suspend a number of cooperative forums with the US. Those include military contacts that likely have deconfliction components, the kind of bilateral communications that keep wars from erupting by accident — especially in regard to “military maritime safety”:
Likely this is nothing more than a petulant pout by Xi Jinping, who can ill afford a war at this time too, thanks to civil unrest over Xi’s Zero Covid policies. That doesn’t make this any less risky, as the lack of communication could lead to an unforeseen clash — especially with the aggression that China’s navy has exhibited over the last few years.
