The US Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs just endorsed the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 by 17-5. The legislation will then be submitted to the Senate for review. If the House also proposes and approves a corresponding legislation later, President Biden may sign it into law. Even if the Act won’t sail through Congress, corresponding clauses may still be incorporated into such legislations as the National Defense Authorization Act and put into practice.

While the Taiwan Policy Act is making its way through the labyrinth in the congressional process in Washington, D.C., it is high time to ponder the consequences of this Act, if adopted and enacted, for China and the United States.

The deadly American hit on the al-Qaida leader has only marginal significance for the global jihadi movement. Clearly, the terror network will not disappear just because it loses a single leader. Nor will the United States change its global anti-terror strategy.

Regional strategic stability depends upon sincere outreach to the DPRK by major powers. Think tanks from China, the U.S. and the ROK have already reached many useful common understandings. They should explore a road map for denuclearization and a peace mechanism and invited the DPRK to participate.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and nuclear saber rattling against the West have revived a debate about nuclear weapons. Last year, when a United Nations treaty to ban such weapons outright entered into force, none of the world’s nine nuclear-weapons states was among the 86 signatories. How can these states justify possessing weapons that put all of humanity at risk?

Their positions vary in some details, but the overall thrust is consistent: ASEAN wants peace and prosperity and supports the “one-China” principle. Members have been cautious not to choose sides in a major power rivalry because they see value in both.

The visit to Taiwan by the U.S. House speaker is a straight-up violation of the one-China principle. It requires no stretch of imagination to see that security and stability will be dangerously degraded if the United States fails to reflect.

The negative influences of the U.S. House speaker’s Taiwan visit are fermenting and will continue to poison China-U.S. relations. Domestic political winds in the United States are stirring up strategic confusion that will inevitably increase the risk of war.

It’s not clear that China and the United States can sit down for truly in-depth discussions that ensure each side can send restrained messages to let the other party get it right. The consequence of failure could mean war, and we’re nearly out of time.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest ranking American government official to visit Taiwan in decades - raising the temperature of the already-tense Taiwan Strait. The current situation reflects not only a history of conflict, but also China’s concerns about U.S. influence in its backyard.