by Li Haidong
BEIJING, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- The crisis triggered by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to China's Taiwan region has made the international community more alert to the U.S. side's usual tactics of creating strife and provoking confrontation.
The U.S. side justifies Pelosi's visit on the pretext of the so-called "separation of powers," which is a fallacy that disturbs the international community and must be strongly refuted.
First of all, the United States must have one foreign policy only, and the separation of powers cannot be used to justify Pelosi's scurrying. A country's foreign policy is usually set by the executive branch and implemented by the others. The one-China principle is the political foundation of U.S.-China relations. The current U.S. administration has made a commitment to upholding the one-China policy and stated that it does not support "Taiwan independence."
As members of a key branch of the U.S. government, words and deeds of the lawmakers have distinct national attributes. Therefore, the nature of Pelosi's visit was far from personal or unofficial, and her move runs counter to the U.S. government's longstanding commitment to the one-China policy.
The Section 3 of Article Two of the U.S. Constitution lays out the responsibilities of the president, saying he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.
In the face of Pelosi's visit, which is in clear violation of international law and U.S. domestic legislation, the president of that country should have done his duty to strongly discourage her. The U.S. government has lost all credibility through its discrepancies between words and deeds on the one-China principle.
Secondly, according to international law, the actions of the U.S. Congress should be regarded as the actions of state, for which the state is responsible. The U.S. government has repeatedly stated that it adheres to the one-China policy, yet its members of Congress have visited Taiwan, which not only exposed the duplicity and hypocrisy of its government's operations, but also posed a serious threat to the general security and well-being of the region and the international community.
The legitimacy of U.S. diplomatic behavior must be based on respect for and compliance with the basic principles of international law and the basic norms of international relations.
Pelosi's visit to Taiwan is not only a blatant departure from the basic principles of international law of respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity, but also a gross violation of the one-China principle, an international consensus and basic norm of international relations that is universally accepted by the international community.
The visits by U.S. Congress members expose the U.S. side's sinister intention to create regional and even global crises and turbulence, which has been universally condemned and resolutely resisted by the vast majority of countries in the international community. In terms of international dimension, there is no legal basis for the U.S. Congress members to visit Taiwan.
Thirdly, from the whole process of Pelosi's visit to the Taiwan region, it can be seen that the U.S. administration department was not "powerless to stop" Pelosi's visit as it said. On the contrary, it used its huge military force, including aircraft carrier strike group to give active cooperation and armed escort.
The Taiwan question is a core issue that can fundamentally affect China-U.S. relations and the cornerstone of the Asia-Pacific and even the global security order, and the subversive policy change that the U.S. side is planning to implement on this issue is bound to be universally condemned and strongly opposed by the international community.
The pretext of the separation of powers is just an excuse to cover up the U.S. side's dangerous move to hollow out and obscure the one-China principle. The underlying intention of this manipulation is to shift the blame to the Chinese side for the U.S. changing the status quo in the Taiwan Straits and creating regional division and confrontation, thereby hyping up the "China-threat" theory in international public opinion and continuing to crowd out the Chinese side in the building of regional security order.
Pelosi got away with the visit that has nothing to do with the separation of powers, but is closely linked to the U.S. side's belief in the logic of power politics to maintain its hegemonic status.
For the United States, as long as it maintains predominance, it can force the international community and the Chinese side to accept the distorted narrative involving Taiwan that the U.S. side is trying to fabricate. This dangerous scheme, however, must be highly alert to the international community.
China and the international community must persistently and thoroughly expose the danger of the U.S. playing with fire on the Taiwan question, and it is necessary and urgent to resolutely resist such disastrous policies. Enditem
(The author is professor at Institute of International Relations, China Foreign Affairs University)
