![Nancy Pelosi]()
© Bloomberg I
hold no candle for Xi Jinping. China’s lifetime dictator has shredded
Deng Xiaoping’s “bide your time, hide your light under a bushel” mantra
that pertained for 30 years — through his successors Jiang Zemin and Hu
Jintao. Xi has no equivalent formula to encapsulate the diplomatic
U-turn that he has brought about in the past few years. Let’s dub it the
“lose your patience, set off geopolitical fireworks” phase of Chinese
diplomacy. Anyone who doubts my concern about China’s new era of ebullient diplomacy might watch this contentious “fireside chat”
that I had with Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the US, at the Aspen
Security Forum this week. As one of Xi’s most senior diplomats,
ambassador Qin represents the new generation of wolf warriors who argue
unapologetically — and sometimes, as was the case this time — with
remarkable brazenness for China’s authoritarian worldview. To
give you one or two highlights from our conversation, Qin explained
Beijing’s new interpretation of “one country, two systems”, which — to
cut a long story short — is really all about one country, not two
systems. Hong Kong, he said, was under threat from pro-colonial
agitators who wished to destroy China from within. The city state’s
terrorist pro-independence elements could not be tolerated, he said.
Hong Kong needed to be “decolonised”. Also listen to his stark answer on
Xinjiang (Cliffs Notes version: Uyghurs are trying to set up an Islamic
republic in the northwestern province; Beijing has no choice but to
take preventive measures). And so on. But
Taiwan is where the rubber hits the road. On this, Xi is no different
from his predecessors — and Qin’s response to my questions, while
disquieting, represents Beijing orthodoxy. When China normalised
relations with the US in 1979, Washington de-recognised Taipei and
pledged to adhere to the “One China” policy with the proviso that it
could provide Taiwan with defensive material while respecting Beijing’s
goal of a peaceful resolution of the island’s sovereignty. Preventing
Taiwan’s independence has been every Chinese leader’s red line and on
this Xi is no different. No Chinese leader could hope to retain domestic
legitimacy while being seen to fail or falter over Taiwan. Until
recently this knowledge was deeply embedded in Washington’s foreign
policy establishment. That no longer appears to be the case. Joe Biden
has himself on three occasions said that the US would come to Taiwan’s
aid in the event of a war with China — unwise departures from
Washington’s “strategic ambiguity” that his staff were quick to
“clarify”. Who does Beijing believe: Biden or his staff? On this,
ambassador Qin showed notable forbearance, all the more notable for the
fact that he was so stentorian on other subjects. I found it hard to
dispute Qin’s view that America’s One China policy is being steadily
eroded and “hollowed out” in today’s Washington. The latest, and most egregious, example of this is Nancy Pelosi’s forthcoming trip to Taiwan
in a thinly veiled gesture of solidarity with the island’s separatist
elements. Pelosi, whose historic speakership will almost certainly come
to an end with this November’s midterm elections, obviously has an eye
on her legacy. She has long been a trenchant critic of China’s abysmal
human rights record and has no wish to modify her stance now. But she is
second in succession to the US presidency and belongs to the same party
as the president. Protestations of US constitutional niceties — that
Congress is separate to the executive — ring hollow in this context. The
larger concern is that Pelosi’s trip is part of a growing American
support for Taiwan independence, which risks an unthinkable US-China
war. I
ask America’s leaders to please consider this in more practical terms.
The world came closest to nuclear annihilation in 1962 when the US
detected Soviet nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba, just 90 miles
off America’s coastline. This crossed a red line for cold war America as
well, breaching the republic’s longstanding — and ultimately
indefensible — Monroe Doctrine that walls off the whole western
hemisphere as America’s sphere of interest. Taiwan is 110 miles off
mainland China’s coastline and, unlike Cuba, has historically been part
of China. The US is within its rights to help Taiwan’s self-defence,
discourage Chinese aggression, and try to broker a peaceful outcome to
this horrific conundrum that threatens global peace. It is in no way
within its right state of mind to dabble in pyromania on China’s
doorstep. Pelsoi may think she is acting on principle. She is in fact
exhibiting the exorbitant irresponsibility of the US legislator — power
without responsibility; the self-indulgence of a figure whose job it has
never been to pick up the geopolitical pieces. |