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Pro-reunification activists display banners reading “Get out” as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park in New Taipei on August 3. Photo: AFP
Opinion
Liu Guangyuan
Liu Guangyuan

With Pelosi’s Taiwan trip, the US betrays the one-China principle

  • While Washington claims Congress acts on it own, the US must fulfil its international obligations
  • In ultimately allowing Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, the US is exacerbating tensions across the Taiwan Strait and jeopardising peace in the region
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ill-disposed visit to Taiwan on August 2 and 3, in defiance of worldwide condemnation, violated the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiques, badly impacted the political foundation of China-US relations, infringed on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and severely undermined peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

The appalling nature of her visit has led to serious indignation among Chinese people and opposition from the international community.

Pelosi has long been a notorious figure – and her actions are a political plague – viewing China for decades through glasses tinted with deep ideological prejudice. On the pretext of promoting democracy and human rights, she has a tarnished record of interfering in China’s internal affairs, such as on issues about Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, religion and human rights.

Despite stern opposition from the Chinese side, Pelosi insisted on visiting Taiwan to look like a “guardian of democracy”. The real purpose of the trip was to seek political capital, prepare her political legacy and feed her political ambition. It once again laid bare her political self-interest and anti-China paranoia.

For some time, the US government has chosen the wrong words and gestures on the Taiwan question and tried to hollow out the one-China principle. Although many in American government and society stressed that Pelosi’s visit would cause a major risk to the Taiwan Strait situation and have serious repercussions for US-China relations, in the end, however, the US side still gave the green light to Pelosi’s misbegotten trip. Effectively, the Americans connived to put on a two-man show.

Washington claims Congress acts on it own through the separation of powers, but people know that, under international law, the US must fulfil its international obligations and refrain from acting wantonly. This especially applies to key political figures. Pelosi is the Speaker of the US House of Representatives and her visit to Taiwan for any reason is a betrayal of the one-China policy that the US government is committed to.

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Xi warns Biden that US ‘playing with fire’ as tensions soar over Pelosi’s proposed Taiwan visit

Xi warns Biden that US ‘playing with fire’ as tensions soar over Pelosi’s proposed Taiwan visit

During her visit, Pelosi colluded with “Taiwan independence” forces to spread lies and advance their agenda, thus pushing Taiwan further down the wrong path of slavishly relying on America, heightening tensions and jeopardising stability across the strait.

Through such a visit, the US is attempting to fold the Taiwan question into its regional strategy, manipulate geopolitics, exacerbate tensions and provoke confrontation to disrupt peace in the Asia-Pacific. This runs counter to regional countries’ aspirations of peace, stability and development.

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People from many countries in the region have openly expressed their view that Pelosi’s visit was a reckless provocation which may have serious consequences for peace and security across the strait, and even in the Asia-Pacific region as a whole.

On the major principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, no country has room for compromise. There is only one China, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. The one-China principle is a globally recognised basic norm governing international relations and a consensus in the international community, as well as the political foundation for China’s exchanges with other countries, including the United States.

We will never allow any country to interfere in the Taiwan question, we oppose all external intervention in China’s peaceful reunification process and we will resolutely reject all attempts to split China.

The will of the people shall not be defied, and trends cannot be reversed. National reunification must and will be realised; time and momentum are on our side. Any move against the historical trend of peaceful development to make an issue of the Taiwan question is like a mantis trying to stop a chariot. It cannot stop the process of China’s reunification; it will only accelerate it.

Anyone who attempts to curb China’s development or impede the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.

Liu Guangyuan is Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

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