As Beijing announced an intimidating array of military exercises around Taiwan, the Chinese government also unleashed a volley of statements making clear that its grievances with the United States go beyond Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island.
In a coordinated chorus, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its Ministry of National Defense, the Chinese Communist Party office for Taiwan affairs and the Chinese legislature issued statements calling Ms. Pelosi’s visit a violation of longstanding American commitments to a “one China” policy that downgraded official links with Taiwan. Biden administration officials have said her visit marked no change in its policies.
But the Chinese denunciations ranged well beyond the House speaker’s visit.
They portrayed Ms. Pelosi’s trip as part of a systematic effort by the United States to “use Taiwan to contain China” and sabotage Beijing’s efforts at unification with the island. They also cited U.S. arms sales and its support for the island’s ability to fight an “asymmetrical” war, congressional actions supporting Taiwan and efforts to give Taiwan a footing in some international forums.
“The United States has become the ‘biggest wrecker’ of peace in the Taiwan Strait and of regional stability,” China’s foreign minister said in a statement issued Wednesday about Ms. Pelosi’s visit. “The United States must have no illusions that it can stymie the great cause of China’s unification.”
To stabilize relations, his and other official comments seemed to suggest, the Biden administration would need to do more than just try to distance itself from the Pelosi visit.
“The United States government must shoulder responsibility,” a Chinese deputy foreign minister, Xie Feng, said when he called in the American ambassador in Beijing, Nicholas Burns, to protest the visit, according to Xinhua, China’s main news agency. “For some time, the United States has said one thing and done another, constantly twisting, distorting, voiding and hollowing out the one-China principle.”
The Chinese leadership reinforced that warning in front-page editorials published Wednesday in the People’s Daily — the Communist Party’s main newspaper — and the Liberation Army Daily, the military’s main newspaper. China’s military exercises around Taiwan, the Liberation Army Daily said, were “a stern deterrent aimed at the United States’ major escalation of negative actions on the Taiwan issue.”
The statements from Senior Col. Wu Qian, a spokesman for China’s defense ministry, and from the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Command, which covers Taiwan, suggested that Ms. Pelosi’s act was a crisis in the making.
“China has multiple times spelled out the grave consequences of visiting Taiwan,” Colonel Wu said. “But Pelosi knowingly violated this and maliciously provoked and created a crisis.”
The Chinese word used in the official statements for “visit” — cuanfang — connotes a sneaky or illicit encounter, not an aboveboard meeting.
Claire Fu contributed research.
