Nancy Pelosi really stepped in it this time.

With the U.S. and China on a collision course over the status of the independent, prosperous, and democratically governed island of Taiwan, the 82-year-old House speaker had a Joe Biden moment: She let slip the news that she’s planning to visit there next month. This infuriated the ChiComs to no end, as they have for decades considered Taiwan to be Chinese property and have vowed to “reunify” with the island either by coercion or by military force.

The trip, as Politico reports, had been rescheduled after Pelosi canceled an earlier visit planned for April, and it comes amid rising tensions between the U.S. and China over the island. “Chinese ships and aircraft have repeatedly buzzed U.S. and allied aircraft over the East and South China Seas in recent months, including an ‘unsafe’ and ‘unprofessional’ interaction between a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. special operations C-130 aircraft in June.”

Such a trip by Pelosi, which would make her the highest-ranking American to visit the island since then-Speaker Newt Gingrich did so in 1997, “would seriously violate the one-China principle and the stipulations in the three China-U.S. joint communiqués and harm China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said Chinese spokesperson Zhao Lijian last Tuesday.

What was Pelosi thinking? Oh, maybe something like, How ‘bout I start a new proxy war with a nuclear-armed country of 1.4 billion people, given that our $60 billion-and-counting proxy war in Ukraine with that other nuclear-armed foe is going so swimmingly well?

Joe Biden was caught off guard by the news last week — so much so that rather than simply calling the trip a bad idea given current conditions, he dragged our armed forces into the mess: “The military thinks it’s not a good idea right now,” he said.

“Pelosi,” as the Associated Press reports, “has been a staunch critic of China throughout her more than three decades in Congress, once unfurling a banner on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square memorializing those killed in the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989. She was also a strong supporter of 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, making her a target of caustic criticism from Beijing.”

Credit to Pelosi for having consistently put her thumb into the eye of the murdering, Wuhan Flu-spreading, live-organ-harvesting, intellectual-property-thieving regime.

But she’s bumbled herself into a tough spot, and it got even tougher yesterday after a phone call between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which Xi, who’s expected to secure an unprecedented third term in office this fall, read the riot act to our hapless and deeply compromised president.

“Those who play with fire will perish by it,” China’s foreign ministry quoted Xi as telling Biden in their fifth call as leaders. “It is hoped that the U.S. will be clear-eyed about this.”

As threats between superpowers go, it doesn’t get much more direct than that.

As Reuters reports, Xi said the U.S. “should abide by the 'one-China principle’ and stressed that China firmly opposes Taiwanese independence and outside interference. Biden told Xi U.S. policy on Taiwan had not changed and that Washington strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, the White House said.”

Complicating matters further, Taiwan thanked Biden for his support after the call and said it would continue to “deepen its security partnership with the United States,” according to a statement from the Taiwanese foreign ministry.

So, what to do now?

Go.

Yep, Nancy Pelosi needs to go to Taiwan just as she said she would. Especially if our longstanding “strategic ambiguity” toward the China-Taiwan situation is to have any teeth, and if we don’t want to give Beijing the green light to invade the island. As the Washington Examiner editorial board writes:

Pelosi’s responsibility bears note in light of escalating Chinese threats against any visit. Chinese officials have even suggested that their response might entail a military component. These threats demand attention.

Still, to now cancel this visit would signal American hesitation in support of our most sacrosanct principle: human freedom. It would undermine a small and courageous democracy and signal weakness to allies desperately seeking more of the opposite. To Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei, and Kim Jong Un, it would signal that America can be threatened into quiet submission.

The trip wouldn’t be without risk, but there are ways to conduct such a visit tactfully. For example, Pelosi should do so on a civilian airliner rather than a military plane, which would be the ultimate provocation, especially if China and its people consider Taiwan to be part of China. We can also make sure through diplomatic channels that China knows we’re not interested in starting a war.

But Pelosi needs to go. Otherwise, we’ll have been reduced to taking orders from Xi Jinping. We can’t compound cluelessness with cowardice. And representatives of the U.S. can’t cave to such bald-faced threats from other nations. In the end, it’s as simple as that.