Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan once admitted that, when it comes to sovereignty, the UN is often blatantly hypocritical. The UN’s own Charter supposedly guarantees the sovereignty of its members – yet the UN, by Annan’s admission, is increasingly riding roughshod over national sovereignty.
Yet even the UN has a rival for global hypocrisy: China.
Taiwan has become symbolic of China’s relentless expansionism, sovereignty be damned.
China issued angry warnings after senior US officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, sent rare, high-level messages to congratulate [Tsai Ing-Wen] on the day of her swearing-in ceremony, at which the Democratic Progressive Party leader reiterated her rejection of a “one China” principle that Beijing considers a cornerstone of relations.
As in Tibet, Communist China has never had any genuine claim to Taiwan. That hasn’t stopped the regime from threatening its tiny, democratic neighbour. Threats which are growing increasingly ominous.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to absorb the island by force, if necessary. With nationalist sentiment running hot in China, military officials and well-known foreign affairs commentators have openly pondered whether to invade the island while the United States, its main backer, is distracted by the coronavirus pandemic[…]
China viewed the Trump administration’s messages as provocations. Its Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that Pompeo’s message “seriously endangered relations between the two countries and two militaries and seriously damaged peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”.
The People’s Liberation Army, it added, has a “firm will, full confidence, and sufficient capacity to frustrate any form of external interference and Taiwan independence plots”.
In a similar statement, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said that “reunification” – or the takeover of de facto independent Taiwan – “is a historical inevitability of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people”. The Foreign Ministry in Beijing vowed unspecified “countermeasures”.
Unlike the Obama administration’s sorry record of vacillation and betrayal, America’s unswerving friends are being fiercely supported by the Trump administration.
In his statement on Taiwan, Pompeo called Taiwan’s democracy an “inspiration to the region and the world” and said the US partnership with Taiwan “will continue to flourish.” Although the remarks were measured, and American presidents have customarily congratulated their Taiwanese counterparts, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry noted that it was the first time a US secretary of state had sent such a note.
In December 2016, then-President-elect Trump also broke diplomatic tradition by receiving a congratulatory call from Tsai.
For her part, Tsai is having none of China’s bullying.
In her inauguration speech, Tsai said that she wanted to coexist peacefully with China but that she would not accept Beijing’s offer of a political framework that would bring Taiwan into the fold on the condition of semi-autonomy.
“We will not accept the Beijing authorities’ use of ‘one country, two systems’ to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo,” said Tsai, who swept into another term with a 75 per cent approval rating.
Watching China’s brutal suppression of the democracy movement in Hong Kong – just this week, pro-democracy lawmakers were forcibly dragged out of parliament by Beijing’s thugs – Taiwan is right to summarily reject the “one country, two systems” bullshit.
What remains to be seen is if, once again, Trump calls Xi’s bluff. Certainly, Taiwan can breathe a sigh of relief that Hillary Clinton is not in the Oval Office.
More than ever, 2016 may turn out to have been one of the most momentous years of the 21st century.
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