中文
This is an editorial from China Daily.
As predicted, the United States has brazenly sought to put the blame on China after Beijing took a series of justified measures in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reckless visit to Taiwan last week.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on Friday that the US has "nothing to rectify" over Taiwan, and called Beijing's moves "irresponsible". These moves include military drills around the island, sanctions on Pelosi and suspending and canceling exchanges with the US in various fields, including the military and climate change.
In his address at a foreign ministers' meeting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations hosted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Beijing "not to manufacture a crisis" and not to "seek a pretext" to increase its "provocative military activities".
But as a spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, Beijing had repeatedly warned the US through various channels of the grave nature of Pelosi's visit and warned that it would not sit idly by and allow room to be created for Taiwan separatist forces. All the consequences arising from her visit therefore must be borne by the US.
The world knows that China is defending its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and it is Washington that is seeking a pretext to justify further provocations. That's why more than 160 countries have censured Pelosi's visit to the Chinese island.
And what pretext did Pelosi put forward for her "peaceful" visit? To advocate "democracy". But she would not have done this were it a US state that was seeking to secede from the US and declare independence as a pawn of foreign powers. Her support of the secessionist-minded Tsai Ing-wen administration on the island was advocating her own ideologically motivated anti-China credentials.
Such pretexts are characteristic of the value diplomacy US politicians employ to cover up the US' trampling on international laws.
The promise that Pelosi made to Tsai that the US will not "abandon" Taiwan belies the true purpose of her visit, which was to reassure the secessionists on the island of Washington's support. But it is the Chinese government, not the US government, that has been steadfast in supporting the well-being of people living on the island. To Washington they are as discardable as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many other places.
The cause and effect of the latest escalation of tensions across the Straits and the rights and wrongs on it are both clear. The fact that an aircraft carrier strike group escorted Pelosi on her visit shows that the US was well aware that she was acting as a provocateur and creator of a crisis.
Moreover, the US has not only unilaterally drafted the so-called Taiwan Relations Act and paralleled it with the three Sino-US joint communiques, but also openly put the "six assurances to Taiwan" in its one-China policy statement. These practices all demonstrate the US' steady hollowing out of its commitment to the one-China principle and its willingness to make playing the Taiwan card a long-term practice to put pressure on Beijing.
Does the US really have "nothing to rectify" over Taiwan? If not, the Tsai administration would not be eating the Chinese meal that Washington ordered for it.
