By Finian Cunningham
November 28, 202:
Information Clearing House
- The Biden administration this week brazenly
announced its intention to walk over China’s red
line warning on Taiwan. The move by the US is a
recklessly provocative step that dares an
inevitable military response from Beijing.
If that happens then all bets are off for a
full-scale military confrontation between the
United States, its allies, and China. It is not
alarmist to say such a clash would escalate into
World War III.
Australia and Britain are explicitly committed
to a military alliance with the United States in
the Asia-Pacific through the recently formed
AUKUS pact. Russia will be obliged to defend
China.
The date in question is December 9-10 when the
Biden administration plays host to a so-called
“Summit of Democracies”. This week the State
Department announced a list of “participants”
that include 110 countries. China and Russia are
not invited, among other excluded nations.
Most provocatively, the separatist Chinese
territory of Taiwan is invited to attend the
video conference. The US is careful to refer to
Taiwan as a “participant” not as a “nation”.
Nevertheless, this semantical device aside, the
invitation is a blatant violation of China’s
sovereign claim of authority over Taiwan.
China’s claim to Taiwan as being a part of its
integral territory is recognized by the United
Nations and, at least in theory, by the United
States with its One China Policy since 1979.
The island of Taiwan has existed as a
self-governing territory since China’s civil war
ended in 1949 with communist victory. The
nationalist opponents fled to Taiwan. China
retains the right to reunite Taiwan under
governance from the mainland. Beijing has warned
it will do so by military force if Taiwan ever
declares independence.
Washington maintains a position of “strategic
ambiguity” whereby it acknowledges a One China
Policy while also simultaneously offering US
commitments to help Taiwan with military defence.
Since Joe Biden took the White House in January,
his administration has taken this ambiguity to
dangerous levels. At one point, Biden has
overstepped policy by explicitly stating the US
would defend Taiwan in the event of a
confrontation with China.
At a teleconference summit on November 16,
China’s President Xi Jinping admonished US
policy on Taiwan as “playing with fire”. Xi
drew a red line that Washington must desist
from inciting separatist ambitions of the
Taiwanese government.
The announcement this week of the “Summit of
Democracies” and specifically the invitation
of Taiwan while excluding China is about as
bold as it can get by the Biden
administration in undermining China’s
sovereignty and territorial integrity. That
it comes only days after a verbal commitment
from Biden to Xi that the US adheres to One
China Policy and is not seeking Taiwan’s
independence makes the provocation all the
more contemptuous.
Biden’s ratcheting up of tensions with China
is not out of the blue. For more than a
decade, successive administrations under
Obama, Trump and now Biden have been
targeting Beijing as its top national
security threat. Washington continually
accuses China of aggression in the
Asia-Pacific which is an inversion of
reality. Taiwan has become a spearhead for
Washington to antagonize China with. Under
this administration, arms sales to Taiwan
have increased as well as US naval and air
force maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait under
the cynical pretext of “freedom of
navigation operations”.
President Biden has made “democracy versus
authoritarianism” a theme of his White
House. Calling a summit of 110 participating
countries for the summit on December 9-10 is
an arrogant attempt to demarcate the world
into a false dichotomy whereby presumed
virtuous nations are under the benign
leadership of the United States.
China has slammed the summit as an
artificial polarization of nations into
so-called allies and enemies in what is a
throwback to the Cold War decades. Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi
said this divisive manipulation of
international relations is simply a ploy by
the United States to exert its hegemonic
ambitions.
China says it is not up to the United States
to define what is democracy and what is not.
Beijing asserts that “democracy belongs to
all humanity”. It’s not just about holding
cycles of elections. In the case of the
United States, its “democracy” is dominated
by two parties bankrolled by Wall Street
capitalists and plutocrats. Its record on
poverty, inequality, racism and warmongering
is plentiful to roundly negate pretentious
claims of “democracy”.
In any case, back in August when the Biden
administration first announced its plans for
a “democracy summit” Beijing
warned Washington not to use the forum
to incite Taiwanese tensions. If the US
persisted, China said it would order
military planes and warships to Taiwan.
There is an unmistakable sense that China
has had it with US provocations. The
mainland has been making military
preparations for a showdown over Taiwan.
This insane move by Washington to call a
“summit of democracies” – how bitterly
ironic – could well be the final act of
American treachery. War is on the cards and
we just got a date.
Finian Cunningham
has written extensively on international affairs,
with articles published in several languages. He is
a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and
worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society
of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a
career in newspaper journalism. He is also a
musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he
worked as an editor and writer in major news media
organisations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and
Independent.
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