US HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi, centre, walks with Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, left, as she arrives in Taipei, Taiwan, Tuesday. (Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP)
By COUNSELLOR CUI WEI
Spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in The Bahamas
The visit by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to China’s Taiwan region on August 2 has triggered outrage across China. For one thing, by allowing such a visit to go ahead, the US has openly broken its own commitment under the three China-US joint communiqués not to develop official relations with Taiwan.
When China and the US established diplomatic relations on Jan. 1, 1979, the US made a clear commitment in the China-US Joint Communique: “The United States of America recognizes the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China. Within this context, the people of the United States will maintain cultural, commercial and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.”
Such a commitment by the US, just like that made by the other 180 countries having diplomatic relations with China, has provided the essential condition for the normal development of China-US relations for the past four decades and more.
In recent years, the Taiwan authorities’ “incremental independence” moves, coupled with the United States’ attempts to distort, obscure and hollow out the one-China principle and step up official exchanges with Taiwan has been pushing cross-Straits relations and China-US relations to a dangerous situation. Pelosi’s visit has only added fuel to the flames and sparked a new round of tensions.
The Taiwan question is not about democracy. It is a major issue of principle about China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. No other issue unites the 1.4 billion Chinese people so strongly and emotionally.
Taiwan’s colonization by imperialist powers was the hallmark of China’s painful decline in modern times. Its eventual, inevitable return to the motherland will be a defining event for China’s journey of rejuvenation.
The US needs to put itself in others’ shoes. If an American state were to secede from the US and declare independence, and some other nation provided weapons and political support for that state, would the US government — or the American people — allow this to happen? China’s countermeasures are necessary as a warning to the provocateurs and as a step to uphold our sovereignty and security.
The same case of external interference has been seen in the South China Sea. As China and some of its Southeast Asian neighbors ASEAN countries work hard to address territorial and maritime disputes through peaceful consultations and negotiations, the US has been intensifying military power projection in the South China Sea, not just deploying offensive weapons, but also conducting regular close-by reconnaissance missions deep into China’s exclusive economic zones and even territorial seas, the intensity of which by their own admission exceeded that carried out against the former Soviet Union during the Cold War times.
Herein lies the real threat to peace and stability in the region.
The world expects major countries such as China and the US to work together to fight the pandemic, safeguard food and energy security and address the climate crisis. The right approach is for China and the US to deal with each other on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, no-confrontation and win-win cooperation.
If the US truly cares about peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits, then the most important and crucial thing for it to do is make sure that it strictly abides by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués in both words and deeds.
Deliberately damaging China’s core interests are like acts of playing with fire; one will only end up getting himself burned.