US urged to stop hyping up Taiwan question

Washington’s acts sacrifice its allies’ interests, regional security, expert says

The United States should stop playing the “Taiwan card” and using Taiwan to contain China, officials and scholars said after US Vice-President Kamala Harris’ visit to Japan, Washington’s closest regional ally, during which she sought to further bolster support for the US stance on so-called Taiwan security issues.

During her threeday trip, which concluded on Wednesday, Harris met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and senior officials from the Republic of Korea and Australia.

Harris lost no opportunity to bring up the Taiwan question during her bilateral meetings with allies of the US, who were in Tokyo for the state funeral of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

And in a speech on Wednesday to US sailors based at the largest overseas US Navy installation at Yokosuka, Japan, Harris accused China of undermining the “international rules-based order”, intimidating its neighbors and engaging in proactive behavior across the Taiwan Straits.

Harris pledged that Washington would “continue to support Taiwan’s self-defense” and “deepen unofficial ties” with the island.

The White House said that Harris’ Asia trip, which will also take her to Seoul, was intended to underscore the US’ “commitment to the IndoPacific region and the strength of its alliances”.

It came days after US President Joe Biden said that the US military would defend Taiwan, backtracking on his promise that the US does not support “Taiwan independence”.

Washington has been fudging and hollowing out the one-China principle, a political foundation of bilateral relations in the wake of the visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island in August. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently approved the “Taiwan Relations Act”, which would greatly boost US military support to Taiwan.

China has on many occasions underlined that the one-China principle is what underpins peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits. The clearer and stronger the commitment of the international community is to the principle, the more likely peace across the Straits will be ensured.

“If the US cannot even keep its own word, in what position is it to talk about rules and order?” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday at a daily news briefing.

“A country like that could only become a disrupter of international rules,” Wang added.

While highlighting that the Taiwan question is at the heart of China’s core interests, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi cautioned last week that should the question, which is growing into the biggest risk affecting Sino-US ties, be mishandled, it is most likely to devastate bilateral relations.

Observers said that the moves by the US to hype up the Taiwan question to stoke tension in the region and damage relations between China and its neighbors are fraught with ideological biases and reflect Washington’s typical hegemonism.

“The US plays with fire on the Taiwan question and tries to instigate security-related anxieties among its allies in order to get them to follow its steps,” said Diao Daming, an associate professor of US studies at Renmin University of China.

“Such acts, sacrificing allies’ interests and regional security, are extremely dangerous, reckless and selfish adventures and also irresponsible in terms of Sino-US relations, and even the peace and stability of the world at large,” he added.

Diao also said that attempts by the US to form various small circles excluding China seek to maintain US hegemony and are unpopular.

The so-called “international rulesbased order” is based on US standards and lacks the common consensus of the international community, said Zhang Tengjun, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies’ Department for Asia-Pacific Studies.

Zhang said countries in the region have expressed their understanding and support for China on its core interests.

Power has not endowed the United States government with the decency and dedication to global responsibility that its claims to the moral high ground warrant. Instead, it has only served to make it more brazen in defying the rules and norms of diplomatic behavior.

This was once again in evidence in a speech that US Vice-President Kamala Harris delivered to US personnel stationed at the US naval facility at Yokosuka, outside of Tokyo, which is one of its largest military bases overseas.

Calling the pot black, Harris claimed that “China is undermining key elements of the international rules-based order” and said the US “will continue to oppose any unilateral change to the status quo”, falsely implying that it is China rather than the US and the authorities in Taipei that is attempting to do so.

Harris should know that it is the provocative visits of US officials to the island, the US’ so-called freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Straits and its militarizing of the island and the region that are aimed at changing the status quo.

The “unofficial relations” the US professes to have with the island’s secession-seeking authorities have become a fig leaf to cover up the collusion between Washington and Taipei, which are intent on transforming the Taiwan question from an internal affair of China into a cause celebre.

Harris’ remarks, which came just five days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reassured Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in New York that the US is committed to maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits and remains committed to its oneChina policy, once again demonstrates the effrontery of the Joe Biden administration in its attempts to dictate what’s what to the international community.

In the same way that it has hatched the Ukraine crisis to weaken Russia and control Europe, it is trying to use the Taiwan question to control the Asia-Pacific and weaken China.

Since it is the US that is “undermining key elements of the international rules-based order” by putting itself above the United Nations-centered international order, it tries to justify its unruly behavior by claiming to be leading the “free world” in a struggle against “authoritarianism”.

Cloaking its gangsterism with moral superiority, the US administration demands support for, or at least the condoning of its hooliganism, on threat of persecution.

What constitutes the biggest threat to peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits at the moment are the Democratic Progressive Party authorities’ provocations aimed at “Taiwan independence” and the connivance and support they are receiving from Washington.