The United States: the great saboteur of peace
As I write this column more than eleven Dongfeng series ballistic missiles have been launched by the Chinese People's Liberation Army over the waters off northeastern and southwestern Taiwan. All commercial flights have been cancelled because of the Chinese siege in their military exercises which will culminate next Sunday. Let us pray that none of their missiles, or bombs, land in the wrong place or shoot down a commercial airliner.
The dragon has roared angrily at Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, an act of clear provocation to China; its own Foreign Minister, Hua Chunying, said that the US is the biggest saboteur of peace. And she is not wrong and Russia should also be added to the list.
The presence of such a high-ranking US official on the island that Beijing considers "rebellious" has been described by Chinese officials as an insult that will not go unpunished and an affront to what Beijing has for decades defended as "one China" with Taiwan forming part of its territory.
Pelosi had already tried to travel to the island last April, but contracted coronavirus and suspended her agenda in Asia, which she finally resumed at the end of July with a triple trip (Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea) to the four countries known as the "Asian tigers". He also included Malaysia and Japan in his schedule.
He has done so under the pretext of taking the pulse of the Indo-Pacific, which has become a hotspot for a series of constant frictions between Chinese and Taiwanese military aircraft and between Chinese and Japanese military aircraft. And other frictions during the navigation of cargo ships in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
The White House claims that the Indo-Pacific should be a free and open zone for the world, but it is home to a multitude of tensions with countries such as Japan and China at odds with each other.
Japan's most recent defence white paper focuses on China as the main aggressor in the region, the main source of concern for Japanese security. The text states that "Taiwan's stability is crucial" for Japan's security.
From Beijing, Wu Qian, spokesman for the Ministry of Defence, said that the report only "exaggerates the so-called military threat" and criticised Japan's victimisation and meddling in matters that only belong to China, such as Taiwan, Diaoyu Island (Senkaku), the South Sea islands and the circumscribed waters.
This part of the world is pure dynamite of tensions that the White House inflames with its interference policy and as an essential supplier of military weapons in the region.
In the last administration of Republican Donald Trump, Alex Azar, then US Secretary of Health, arrived in Taiwan on 9 August 2020. Until then, no other US politician of that rank had visited the island since 1979.
On that occasion, Beijing also protested, calling Trump an interferer and threatening retaliation. Trump responded two months later by authorising the largest arms sale ever recorded to Taiwan for $2.37 billion for 100 Harpoon maritime defence systems and 400 RGM 84L-4 Harpoon Block II missiles.
The first to sell arms to Taiwan was Democrat Barack Obama (2009 to 2017) who authorised $1.83 billion worth of arms, frigates, missiles and military vehicles.
Biden is no slouch either. The Democratic Party leader has authorised five separate arms sales packages to the island; the first, on 5 August 2021, for 40 M109 self-propelled howitzers and 1,700 precision-guided kits worth $750 million.
Four more arms sales packages have followed: the most recent - on 18 July - a $108 million contract for combat vehicles and tank parts.
In the year and a half of the Biden administration, Taiwan's rearmament has accelerated like never before. The US arms lobby has a significant economic and political influence on the destiny of the White House, so it is not surprising that Taiwan will receive another arms package before the end of 2022, nor is it surprising that Biden has put Russia and China firmly on his agenda for the coming weeks when the electorate will have to vote on the fate of Congress. Supremacy pure and simple...