Johannesburg - America’s cantankerous foreign policy – on the strength of the latest dose of evidence – is increasingly a threat to geopolitical stability and indeed world peace.
How does one, even the most neutral of international relations observers, begin to make sense of the public dichotomy over China between President Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, reckless Speaker of the US House of Representatives?
Pelosi made a glaring mockery of America’s long-held foreign policy standpoint towards Beijing’s globally-recognised One China Policy, which encompasses Taiwan as an integral part.
At the tail-end of the 70’s, then US president Jimmy Carter categorically declared Washing’s formal recognition of One China Policy, paving a way to the much-anticipated normalisation of relations between the US and China.
Days prior to Pelosi’s provocative visit to Taiwan China’s President Xi Jinping held a more than two-hour meeting with President Biden, spelling out Beijing’s red line on Taiwan that needed not to be crossed. President Xi also went to great length in an attempt to implore President Biden to dissuade Pelosi from causing unnecessary strain in the bilateral relations between the world’s two biggest economies. President Biden reiterated that the one-China policy of the US remained unchanged and will not be tampered with. In a nutshell, the US does not support “Taiwan independence”.
In fact, the US foreign policy – until the visit by the Speaker of Congress that Chinese media has dubbed “Hurricane Pelosi”, the US foreign policy clearly stated: “The people of the US will maintain cultural, commercial and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.”
However, as things rapidly turned out Congress, for which Pelosi is the principal, is not necessarily beholden to the whims of the White House. Thus President Biden’s plea to Pelosi to erase her stop-over in Taiwan during her Asian tour fell on deaf ears.
And now, the entire east Asian region is on a precipice, thanks to Pelosi’s egregious provocation.
Shortly after Pelosi’s departure from Taiwan, China announced that the country’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will hold live military drills around Taiwan.
Forty-eight hours later Beijing further announced that the country has unleashed sanctions on Pelosi and her immediate family.
A statement from China’s foreign ministry noted that “in disregard to China’s grave concerns and firm opposition, Pelosi insisted on visiting Taiwan, which constitutes a gross interference in China’s internal affairs”.
The foreign ministry’s statement further read: “It (Pelosi’s visit) gravely undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, seriously tramples on the one-China principle, and severely threatens peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
To be quite honest, China did not want, nor wish to find itself in such a spot of bother. Hence, the lengthy telephonic meeting initiated by President Xi in an attempt to avert a crisis through engagement with his US counterpart.
Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was the worst kept secret. On the day that she landed in Taipei, a US official statement boisterously declared that America will not be intimidated by China.
Pelosi, aged 82, might have departed Taiwan in haste, but the political debris she’s left behind will be hard to tidy up. The controversial, nay, unwanted visit has, if anything, ratchet up tension between Beijing and Washington. There is a saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.
The rest of the international community – far away from the Taiwan Strait, should get ready for it is going to be the “grass” that suffers when the world’s biggest economy and the world’s biggest emerging economy comes face-to-face.
Pelosi’s shenanigans in no way bear the hallmarks of building or stabilising the China-US relations. The opposite is the reality.
Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the US at the Wilson Center in the US, expressed concern that Pelosi’s sneaky visit to Taiwan and her unfathomable antics bring no benefits whatsoever to the Biden administration.
“To me,” Daly argued in the aftermath of Pelosi’s dust, “that is not strategic, it’s not rational, it’s not smart, and it’s not being driven by national security expertise or thinking.”
Some geopolitical scholars, including Professor Shelley Rigger of the political science faculty at the Davidson College, forecast a much more tedious and arduous road ahead in China-US relations.
Pelosi, in a flagrant disregard for her country’s own foreign policy position, bragged during her brief Taiwan escapade: “Our delegation came here to deliver an unequivocal message: America stands with Taiwan,” she said. Yet the truth is her remarks have nothing to do with democracy. It is more about China’s remarkable emergence and its growing geopolitical influence, particularly across the global South.
Taiwan’s separatist forces would predictably be buoyed by the visit, and Pelosi’s subsequent utterances. But Taiwan will never secede from mainland China. No, not on the watch of the more than 1.4 billion Chinese people who regard Taiwan as part of one China.
As countermeasures to Pelosi’s provocation China launched a series of targeted military operations around Taiwan island. Beijing also unleashed selective sanctions against Taiwan’s self- governing territory among which are restrictions on imports and exports.
Ni Yongjie, vice president of the Shanghai Institute of Taiwan Studies, accused Pelosi of trying to use Taiwan “as a chess piece, to try and isolate the island from the mainland”.
Yongjie further argued Pelosi’s visit would only serve the interests of her Democratic Party during mid-term elections scheduled for November. “She wants to use this visit to cater for the anti-China populism in the United States and maintain her position as the House of Representatives Speaker,” said Yongjie.
The Pelosi hurricane is already driving a wedge between international power blocs. A G7 communique sharply questioned China’s military exercises, prompting a harsh rebuke from Beijing.