WASHINGTON (AP) – China cut ties with the United States on important issues Friday – including military issues and the importance of climate cooperation – as concerns arose that the opposition of the Communist government during Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan may indicate a more permanent, stronger approach. toward its US rival and self-governing island.
China’s move to freeze key lines of communication exacerbated the deterioration of relations since Pelosi’s visit and from China’s response to military exercises from Taiwan, including the firing of missiles that splashed down on nearby waters.
After the White House summoned China’s ambassador, Qin Gang, late Thursday to protest the military, White House spokesman John Kirby on Friday condemned the decision to end important discussion with the United States is “improper.”
A White House spokesman criticized China’s “provocative” actions since Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, which China claims is part of its territory. But Kirby said that some channels of communication are still open between the military leaders in the two countries. He repeated daily assurances that the US had not changed its policy toward the Communist mainland and the self-governing island.
“The bottom line is that we will continue our efforts to continue to open the lines of communication that protect our interests and our values,” Kirby said. He refused to talk about any damage to the long-term relations between China and the United States, saying it was a discussion for a later time.
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Taiwan has put its military on high alert and conducted training to protect civilians, but sentiment remained calm on Friday. The flight has been canceled or diverted and the fishermen are still staying in the port to avoid Chinese lessons.
On the Chinese coast across from Taiwan, tourists gathered to try to catch a glimpse of the military aircraft.
A minister at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Jing Quan, told reporters that Pelosi’s mission to support the democratic government of Taiwan has had “a serious impact on China’s political base- U.S. relations, has seriously violated China’s sovereignty and (relative) integrity and … undermined peace and stability on the Taiwan Straits.”
In the long term, a more strategic relationship between China and the United States threatens a balance in which the governments of Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have avoided human rights, trade, competition and a number of other issues but avoid direct conflict and maintain high-level communication at times. other issues, including reducing climate damage.
A joint US-China agreement against climate change struck by Xi and President Barack Obama in November 2014 is considered a turning point that led to the landmark 2015 Paris agreement that almost all the countries of the world pledged to try to prevent it. emission of heat-trapping gases. Seven years later during the climate talks in Glasgow, another US-China agreement helped to smooth over another international trade dispute.
China and the United States are the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 climate polluters, together producing nearly 40% of all fossil fuels.
In fact, experts in China-U.S. Relations warned that China’s government and military actions appeared to be more than retaliation for the visit and could open a new era, more transparent opposition, and a time more uncertainty for Taiwan’s democratic government.
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China-U.S. relations are “in a downward spiral,” said Bonnie Glaser, head of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund.
“And I think that China may change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait in ways that may harm Taiwan and that will harm the United States,” Glaser said.
In recent years, other rounds of disputes between China and its neighbors on the border of India, regional islands and the South China Sea have ended and China has put forward new domestic and assertive claims, which said John Culver, a former East Asian intelligence official, today. a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. The same thing could happen on Taiwan, said Culver. “So I don’t know how this situation will end. We’ve seen how it starts.”
China’s actions this week are the latest steps aimed at punishing the US for allowing visits to the island it claims as its own territory, deploying force if necessary. China on Thursday announced the threat of military action off the coast of Taiwan, until Sunday.
Some of the missiles were sent over Taiwan itself, Chinese officials told state media — a major escalation of China’s threat to the island.
China often criticizes when Taiwan has direct communication with foreign governments, but its response to the visit of Pelosi – who is the highest-ranking American official in 25 years – was very strong.
It appears to be disrupting an unusual policy statement – high-level personal meetings between senior officials in recent months including defense chiefs at an Asian defense conference in Singapore and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a Group 20 meeting in Indonesia.
Those speeches were seen as steps in a positive direction in a toxic relationship. At this time, the talks have stopped even on the weather, where the representatives of the two countries have met many times.
China has stopped short of disrupting economic and trade talks, where Biden is looking to raise tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on Chinese imports.
On Friday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it would cancel talks between the US and China’s regional leaders and defense ministry chiefs, as well as talks on national security. Sami. Cooperation on the return of immigrants, criminal investigations, organized crime, drugs and climate change will be suspended, the ministry said.
China’s actions come ahead of the Communist Party’s main congress at the end of the year which is expected to give President Xi a third five-year term as party leader. With the economy stumbling, the party has fueled patriotism and launched near-daily attacks on the government of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who refuses to recognize Taiwan as part of China.
China said on Friday that more than 100 warplanes and 10 warships took part in four military drills. toured Taiwan in the past two days. Additionally, similar charges were announced against Pelosi and her family.
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Off the coast of China, warplanes could be heard flying overhead, and tourists taking pictures chanted, “Let’s take Taiwan back,” looking out into the blue waters of the Taiwan Strait from the island of Pingtan, a famous place in Fujian province in China.
Pelosi’s visit stirred the emotions of the Chinese people, and the government’s response “made us feel the strength of our mother and gave us confidence that the return of Taiwan is a process that is not able to resist,” said Wang Lu, a tourist from neighboring Zhejiang.
China is a “strong country and does not allow anyone to offend its own territory,” said Liu Bolin, a high school student visiting the island.
China’s insistence that Taiwan is its territory and its threat to use force to regain control has been reflected in the statements of the Communist Party, the education system and the state-controlled media for more than seventy years since the sides split in the midst of war in 1949.
The people of Taiwan are very interested in maintaining the status quo of true independence and reject China’s demands to unify the island and the country under Communist rule.
Beyond Taiwan, five missiles fired by China landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone in Hateruma, an island south of Japan’s main islands, Japan’s Defense Minister said. Nobuo Kishi. He said that Japan opposed the missile attack on China as a “dangerous war on the national security of Japan and the security of the Japanese people.”
In Tokyo, where Pelosi is wrapping up her Asian tour, she said that China cannot prevent American officials from visiting Taiwan.
