Washington, unsated by the suffering it has caused, seeks another bloody hellscape

The US Capitol building is shrouded in haze in Washington, DC, the United States, on June 7, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

It seems that the United States cannot resist continuing to up the ante in its meddling in the Taiwan question and that it will keep sending wrong signals to the "pro-independence" forces on the Chinese island.

If the Chinese mainland "invades" Taiwan, the United States will "turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities", Admiral Samuel Paparo, the new head of US "Indo-Pacific" Command, was quoted as saying by The Washington Post in an opinion piece published on Monday.

Having washed their hands of the domestic problems in the US, which require more than a sound bite and badge of blame pinned on those of the other political stripe to fix, the members of the political establishment in Washington have obviously been drumming their fingers in idleness for too long — which has been an invitation for the devil to give them something to do.

Despite having already created "unmanned hellscapes" in Ukraine and Gaza, that has clearly not been enough for someone with the work ethic of Lucifer who is unwilling to let the Washington do-gooders rest on their blood-soaked laurels.

According to Paparo, the US' plan is to use a large, lethal drone force to buy the US time "for the rest of everything" in its "Hellscape strategy". Such rhetoric is obviously meant to boast of the US' military capabilities in the region while shoring up the confidence of Taiwan's new regional radical separatist leader Lai Ching-te that he enjoys the US' support.

Last month, Lai filled his inauguration speech with "Taiwan independence" fallacies and hostile rhetoric toward the mainland, shamelessly claiming that Taiwan is a de facto "sovereign" nation parallel with the mainland.

Much of Lai's audacity in voicing such hokum in violation of the legal status of the island comes from such overt expressions of support the island's separatists have been offered by the US and its allies, which have emboldened the island's "pro-independence" forces to walk ever more boldly and recklessly along the dangerous road of splitting the island from the motherland in recent years.

But Lai and his "pro-independence" Democratic Progressive Party cohorts should know even in the worst-case scenario of a cross-Strait "hellscape" the US will not be able to materialize their pipe dream. In such a scenario, they will simply bring untold suffering on the Taiwan people as a whole, who will pay a dear price for the island being sold to Washington as part of a devil's bargain.

The US should fully recognize the sensitivity of the Taiwan question and the dangerous ambition of the "Taiwan independence" separatists, which poses the biggest risk to cross-Strait peace and stability as well as a major challenge to China-US relations.

High-ranking figures in the US military have been voicing such fire-and-brimstone warnings like Paparo's with increasing frequency now that the Joe Biden administration has unlocked the gates to hell in Europe and the Middle East. Not only is the US trying to impress upon the outside world that the US military is well-prepared for a conflict over Taiwan but it is straining at the leash to get into the fray again, having nursed the wounds suffered in the ill-conceived war on terror.

No matter what the US says or does it will not deter the People's Liberation Army from doing its duty should the need arise. The PLA has already demonstrated its capability to effectively seal off the island. The US should fully abide by the one-China principle, honor its commitment of not supporting "Taiwan independence" and stop sending any wrong signal to pro-independence forces in Taiwan in any form. The intensified PLA patrols and exercises around Taiwan are not only meant to deter the separatists in Taiwan but also meant to send an unmistakable message to any outside forces that they should not underestimate Beijing's resolve to safeguard the nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity.