US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has attracted world attention, for it was a violation of international laws of pacta sunt servanda (agreement of the parties must be kept), under which any nation that has established a diplomatic relationship with the People’s Republic of China shall not maintain any official relationship with Taiwan.
The island has been internationally regarded as a renegade province of China; the current status of the Taiwan Straits is a result of the Chinese civil war that remains unresolved, even after the Kuomintang-led army was defeated on the mainland and fled to Taiwan in 1949. The one-China principle has been a consensus in the international community.
Pelosi’s provocative Taiwan trip was in part aimed at giving the island’s separatists a pat on the back, egging them on to walk further down their path of secessionism. The countermeasures taken by Beijing so far, including the People’s Liberation Army’s largest-ever live-fire military drills around the island and the issuance of a new white paper on the Taiwan question, are justifiable by any standard.
These actions are intended to stop a salami-slicing ploy aimed at dismantling the one-China principle with the ultimate objective of separating Taiwan from China. The “overreaction” accusation hurled at Beijing by Washington and its few allies is empty, fragile and unconvincing, as evidenced by the fact that more than 170 countries in the world have voiced their support for China to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and reaffirmed the one-China principle after Pelosi’s Taiwan trip. They stopped short of condemning Pelosi’s provocative act probably out of consideration for diplomatic niceties or other concerns.
No decent nation sits on its hands in the face of secessionist activities. When the slave states in the American South threatened secession over the slavery conflict, Abraham Lincoln said in his Springfield, Illinois, speech in 1858 that “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe the government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.” The secession movement of the American South was ended by war, as we know today. For the renegade province of Taiwan, then-State leader Deng Xiaoping proposed a “one country, two systems” solution four decades ago, which shall trump the option of war.
But a nonpeaceful solution to the Taiwan question remains an option, albeit only as a last resort. Article 8(1) of China’s Anti-secession Law states: “In the event that the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist force should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China, or that major incident entailing Taiwan’s secession from China should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the State shall employ non-peaceful means and other measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
In face of such a material breach of the one-China principle and foreign interference, it is at Beijing’s discretion to take all necessary countermeasures as deterrence to further secessionist moves and collusions that would infringe on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as stipulated in international laws.
Washington and Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party authorities shall take the blame for playing the “Taiwan card” so recklessly and harming China’s core national interest. For the Chinese government and its people, the one-China principle is a matter of paramount importance that brooks no compromise. Those who underestimate the country’s determination and willpower to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity will do so at their own risk.
Judging from the present international situation, China’s countermeasures against foreign interference and local secessionist forces’ “Taiwan independence” maneuvers will prove to be necessary and viable for safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
The author is a former professor at the Research Center for Hong Kong and Macao Basic Law, Shenzhen University.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.