Why China's responses to Pelosi's visit are correct, yet restrained

By Abu Naser Al Farabi

By persistent provocations, Washington has a long-standing tendency to drag a local or regional dispute for its own hegemonic advantages in a way that results in a diplomatically resolvable crisis to drift out of control and sliding into a grand-scale conflict. This has occurred from the Vietnam War to Afghanistan and recent war in Ukraine.

Accordingly, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to China's Taiwan region is the latest case of this American foreign policy tactic.

But China, in response to the blatant provocation and flagrant violation of its territorial integrity, took countermeasures and conducted People's Liberation Army training exercises in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Island. Nonetheless, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, dubbed China's military response as an "overreaction" with "no justification."

Warplanes of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army conduct operations during joint combat training exercises around China's Taiwan Island, August 7, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

In truth, China's harsh but restrained counter-responses are rightly reasoned and justified on the following grounds:

China didn't let the U.S. provocation go unanswered without any retaliatory response. This has sent a prescient message to Washington about Beijing's red-lines regarding Taiwan are. Washington has long used provocation to test its adversaries' tolerance limits. By keeping the provocation level within an apparently tolerable limit, but gradually intensifying the level toward further escalations.

The Russia-Ukraine war resembles this pattern. We have witnessed decades of American provocations, ranging from NATO expansion to poking anti-Russian ultra-nationalism in Ukraine, having culminated in the current disaster. At the outset, the West distanced itself from a direct conflict between the U.S., NATO and Russia. But in recent months, both the lethality and scale of U.S.-military aid have risen, with the provocations sliding into a frightening escalation. Unanswered U.S. provocations are little by little bloated into a major escalatory push from Washington.

Additionally, If Pelosi's provocative visit had been allowed to go unanswered, it would set a precedent for secessionists in Taiwan advancing their agenda. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, given the cross-Strait ties cemented by historical commonalities, geographical proximity, and inherently built inseparable Chinese identity. Letting the small pro-separatist fringe go along their agenda, boosted by external incitement, could set an ominous precedent for the future.

Most importantly, China is right in asserting its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Washington has justified its involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war as an excuse to stand by Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Quite paradoxically, it has continued to infringe on China's ones by dangling with Taiwan's separatist outfits. On one hand, by engaging in the Ukraine war in the name of helping Kyiv, the U.S. has already inflicted disastrous outcomes on the rest of the world; and on other hand, it has dragged the world into another catastrophic end by violating the very principles that it has claimed to stand for.

Accordingly, China is taking a stern response against Western endeavors that have a global neo-colonial outreach. In Taiwan, as observed by the Guardian columnist, Simon Jenkins, "the West is flirting with disaster" in its pursuit to satiate neo-colonial desire. While pointing to the new pattern of Western colonialism, he asserted, "the West is blighted by weakened and failing leaders, striving to boost their ratings by promoting conflicts abroad. What is new is the conversion of the old Western imperialism into a new order of Western 'interests and values,' ready to be prayed in aid of any intervention."

But as a powerful global stakeholder, the Chinese leadership has not allowed their hearts to dominate over their heads by responding to blatant provocations on the part of the U.S. Peaceful reunification of Taiwan is not only a political agenda for Beijing, it is indeed an overwhelming emotion for 1.4 billion Chinese. But responsibility comes along with power. The world has been reeling from unprecedented economic and humanitarian distresses. China's harsh response with restrained countermeasures has demonstrated both its firm commitment to national sovereignty and its responsible global stakeholdership.   

Abu Naser Al Farabi is a Dhaka-based columnist and analyst focusing on international politics, especially Asian Affairs.