Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan opens salvo of a war with China that the US will lose
On Tuesday night, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sneakily landed in China’s Taiwan island like a thief, detonating the mine she has thrown over the situation in the Taiwan Straits and China-US ties. China has repeatedly warned on how egregious the nature of the visit and how serious the consequences could be. But Pelosi turned a deaf ear, neither did Washington take effective measures to stop it, which triggered a new round of tension and severe challenges across the straits.
The status quo has finally changed. Any illusion that the US is or ever was committed to the one-China principle has evaporated. The arrival of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and second in line to serve as the Chief Executive in the sitting President’s absence has ended decades of reunification efforts. From the perspective of the People’s Republic of China, the Three Communiques which set the conditions for US-PRC diplomatic relations are viewed by the US to be worthless pieces of paper.
Senator Barry Goldwater and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi would have been best friends today and would have made the trip together. Goldwater and his allies were enraged when the United Nations recognized the PRC as sole representative of China and ejected Taiwan from the China seat.
When the US President extended recognition to the PRC and rescinded a US commitment to defend the ROC, Congress crafted and passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) in retaliation. The TRA was poison pill designed to subvert the conditions underlying US-PRC formal diplomatic relations. It has worked exactly as it was designed. The US is openly committed to defending what it has since unilaterally decided is an independent allied nation of Taiwan.
Anyone in the US government would dismiss that observation as uninformed. The Executive Branch and a few remaining members of Congress robotically insist that the US remains committed to the one-China policy. But the evidence speaks for itself, and the claim is farcical. Since the TRA was signed into law every president has bowed to Taiwan and its fawning champions in the US Congress. Together they have armed Taiwan to the teeth fully conscious that the PRC has always seen the island as one of its provinces. Complementing the US “Porcupine Strategy” to make Taiwan impenetrable is the massive build-up of US forces to contain China and defend Taiwan.
The stage was set for war and the speaker’s visit may have lit the fuse, as the PRC has likely lost all faith in the sincerity of the US on any issue. Washington, D.C. is a Byzantine system of competing power centers. The Executive and Congress are in theory not always in synch. So, when President Biden expressed his and the Department of Defense’s (DoD) reservations about the speaker’s trip, one might consider that to be healthy democratic discord. Still, by flying aboard a US Force-operated passenger jet transport her travel was endorsed by the DoD and ultimately approved by the president. The speaker’s visit was clearly performed in her quasi-Executive Branch capacity as the second in line of presidential succession. While disagreement over the visit appeared credible to outsiders, it was in fact a ruse.
Some will object to any suggestion of a government subterfuge and point to a previous speaker’s visit to Taiwan. But that Congressman also visited the PRC on the same trip. From this they argue Congresswoman Pelosi’s visit is not a grave aggravation of political and military tension. Then there are other pundits who will suggest that the speaker intended to cleverly use the media headlines of the trip to force bipartisan admiration of her in Congress. Attention might mask other unflattering controversies and concerns that were affecting her public opinion.
However, what is happening now transcends personalities, political posturing and scandals. This was the strongest official signal to the PRC to date that the US officially supports Taiwan’s secession from the one-China principle. It was the opening salvo of a war between the US and the PRC, a war of the US’ own making. Do members of the American public understand the horrors their government is about to inflict on their sons and daughters when they are sent off to fight a wholly inappropriate intervention that the US will lose?
In another article published by the Global Times, it was asserted that Pelosi’s stupid, reckless, dangerous provocative actions welded the entire responsibility for undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits to the US and the DPP authorities.
This is a new escalation of collusion between the US and the Taiwan island, a serious and destructive change to the status quo in the Taiwan Straits, and it is also betrayal of US’ serious political commitment to China. In addition to violating the one-China principle and the Three Communiqués between China and the US, the visit also violates the United Nations Resolution 2758. Some politicians in the US use the so-called separation of powers as a guise to try to shirk responsibility. Their argument doesn’t hold water at all.
Any independent sovereign country will never allow external interfering forces and internal separatist forces to jointly conspire to undermine its sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, let alone a big country like China. To defend China’s core interests, any countermeasures taken by China are legitimate and necessary, and are exercising the rights that a sovereign country has. In fact, compared to the forms, the effect of the countermeasures is more important.
First of all, the great risk Pelosi created must backfire on herself. In other words, we should create the risk of Pelosi’s Taiwan visit to significantly increase the cost of her political performance and enhance the price she has to pay. We should make people like Pelosi understand that Taiwan is not a place where they can visit at will. The route of the plane Pelosi took on Tuesday shows that the aircraft circled over the South China Sea in apparent fear of the PLA conducting live-fire exercises in the relevant waters. China’s military deterrence actions have made Pelosi feel the danger.
Second, China’s countermeasures will not be one-off but a combination of long-term, resolute and steadily advancing actions. Just as Pelosi was on her way to Taiwan, the PLA Air Force has sent its Su-35 fighter jets to cross the Taiwan Straits. PLA Eastern Theater Command will hold joint military operations around Taiwan island with joint maritime and air drills in north, southwest, southeast of island, long-range artillery shooting in Taiwan Straits, and conventional missile test firing in sea regions east of island starting Tuesday night. PLA will also conduct important military exercises and training activities including live-fire drills surrounding the island of Taiwan, from Thursday to Sunday.
From the de facto breaking of the “median line” of the Taiwan Straits, to PLA’s regular patrols in Taiwan’s southwest “airspace” and full circle flights around the island, to the clear emphasis that the Taiwan Straits are not international waters, every provocation by the US and Taiwan in recent years has been countered by the mainland’s further strengthening of actual control over the Straits. This time won’t be an exception.
Third, China’s countermeasures fundamentally aim to promote the process of national reunification. The time and momentum to achieve the reunification of the motherland are always firmly in our own hands. No matter what form they take to support Taiwan and contain the mainland, forces like Pelosi cannot change the historical and legal fact that Taiwan belongs to China, nor can they hinder the trend of China realizing full reunification. It should be noted that every step external forces, such as the US, and the DPP authorities take to upgrade their collusion and provocations, the faster China will realize the full reunification.
Like a “political god of plague,” Pelosi didn’t do any good to the region except bringing risks and tensions to Taiwan. Some media in Taiwan have revealed that the DPP authorities had secretly withdrawn its invitation to Pelosi, but had to continue to arrange the reception under the censure of the US politician. This piece of news is quite intriguing, as it vividly demonstrates the DPP authorities’ low and shady mentality and Pelosi’s peremptory and selfish attitude toward Taiwan. It is a true microcosm of the relationship between the US and Taiwan. It is also a disgrace and sorrow, to which the reunification of the two sides of the Taiwan Straits will put a complete end.
Source: Global Times