Retaliation for visits by US politicians to Taiwan continues. That of Nancy Pelosi, president of the House of Representatives, has been followed this week by five US congressmen. This Tuesday, Beijing has sanctioned seven Taiwanese officials and politicians “for life”, accusing them of promoting an independence agenda for the self-governing island that China considers an inalienable part of its territory. The Taiwan Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee has announced that neither the seven “Taiwanese separatist fanatics” nor their close relatives will be allowed to enter the Chinese mainland or the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao. Likewise, the organizations with which the sanctioned have ties will have restricted cooperation with both companies and individuals from the Asian giant, while their sponsors will also not be able to carry out lucrative activities on the other side of the Strait of Formosa.
According to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, the Taiwan Labor Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has included seven Taiwanese politicians and activists in its list of “staunch separatists”. China has justified the decision to “safeguard the peaceful development of relations across the strait and the immediate interests of the peoples on both sides.”
Six of the seven sanctioned are members of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (PDP), which favors further distancing from Beijing. They are Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s representative in the US; Wellington Koo, secretary general of the island’s National Security Council; Tsai Chi-chang, Vice President of the Legislative Yuan (Parliament); Ker Chien-ming, leader of the PDP in the Legislative Yuan; Wang Ting-yu, member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense; and Lin Fei-fan, Deputy General Secretary of the PDP and one of the activists who led the 2014 student protests known as the Sunflower Movement. On his Facebook page, Lin Fei-fan expressed that it is an honor to be included in the list: “In these times, being sanctioned by an authoritarian regime should be a decoration for members of the free world, it is very glorious. ”.
The seventh sanctioned is Chen Jiau-hua, legislator and president of the New Power Party, the third political force on the island and also inclined towards independence. These people join a list that already included, since December, the Taiwanese Prime Minister, Su Tseng-chang; the president of the Legislative Yuan, You Si-kun; and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu.
“For some time now, some staunch separatists, for their own interests, have gone to great lengths to collude with outside forces in provocations advocating Taiwan independence. They have deliberately instigated clashes across the strait and recklessly undermined peace and stability in the region,” the Beijing spokesman was quoted as saying by Xinhua. According to his statements, the activities of the individuals named “became even more notorious” during Pelosi’s visit earlier this month.
Despite the fact that China reiterated, actively and passively, that it was opposed to the visit of the American politician as an act of support for secessionism, the 82-year-old legislator stopped for 19 hours in Taipei as part of a longer tour across Asia-Pacific. Even the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, warned his US counterpart, Joe Biden, during a phone call prior to the trip, that with this visit the US would be provoking and playing with fire.
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Beijing responded to Pelosi’s trip with unprecedented military exercises in the region (which included live fire and crossed the border on several occasions). de facto of the strait); with the freezing of dialogue with the US on key issues; imposing import sanctions on 2,000 Taiwanese products; and toughening the speech against Taipei. Despite China’s harsh reaction, a new delegation of five US congressmen traveled to Taiwan on Sunday, where they met with President Tsai Ing-wen and other top officials on Monday. Beijing responded to what it saw as a new provocation by resuming the war exercises.
“The actions that seek the independence of Taiwan constitute the greatest obstacle to the reunification of China,” assured the rulers of Beijing. Reunification is, in Xi’s own words, a “historic mission of the Communist Party.” After the victory of the Communist Army in the Chinese civil war in 1949, the nationalist leaders fled to Taiwan, where they instituted the Government of the Republic of China in exile. Meanwhile, on the mainland, Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Since the 1970s, most countries have recognized Beijing as the legitimate government of China, to the detriment of Taipei, although with the island (which functions as a state in fact, but not in law) they maintain economic and commercial ties.
Putin accuses the US of “destabilizing” the world over Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Tuesday of seeking to “prolong” the Ukrainian conflict and “destabilize” the world with the recent visit to Taiwan by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. “The situation in Ukraine shows that the United States is trying to prolong this conflict. And it acts in the same way, instigating the potential conflict in Asia,” Putin said in a speech at the 10th International Security Conference in Moscow.
Putin sees Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan as “a conscious strategy to destabilize the situation in the world.” The purpose of the visit, according to the Russian president, would be to extend a “NATO-like system” in the Asia-Pacific region.
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