The Chinese government on Friday escalated its retaliatory response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan earlier this week by suspending diplomatic ties on a number of key fronts, including the climate crisis, and canceling military coordination agreements with the United States.
According to the Associated Press:
The measures, which come amid cratering relations between Beijing and Washington, are the latest in a promised series of steps intended to punish the U.S. for allowing the visit to the island it claims as its own territory, to be annexed by force if necessary. China on Thursday launched threatening military exercises in six zones just off Taiwan’s coasts that it says will run through Sunday.
Missiles have also been fired over Taiwan, defense officials told state media. China routinely opposes the self-governing island having its own contacts with foreign governments, but its response to the Pelosi visit has been unusually vociferous.
In addition to the suspension or cancellation of the high-level diplomatic channels, China’s Foreign Ministry also announced unspecified sanctions against Pelosi and her immediate family as punishment for the “egregious provocation” which Chinese officials had adamantly warned against.
“In disregard of China’s grave concerns and firm opposition, Pelosi insisted on visiting China’s Taiwan region,” the ministry said in a statement. “This constitutes a gross interference in China’s internal affairs.”
Pelosi’s meddling, the statement continued, “gravely undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, seriously tramples on the one-China principle, and severely threatens peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
As Common Dreams reported, anti-war voices and regional experts had repeatedly urged Pelosi to reconsider the visit during her travels in Asia, warning that a stop in Taipei could further erode an already strained relationship with Beijing.
“A trip to Taiwan by the most powerful member of Congress undermines […] longstanding U.S. policy and increases the risk of another war,” said Marcy Winograd and Jim Carpenter, co-chairs of the foreign policy team for Progressive Democrats of America, in a statement ahead of Pelosi’s trip.
Following news of China’s actions on Friday, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, offered exasperated sarcasm over the latest development.
“Way to go, Speaker Pelosi,” lamented Benjamin. “Your visit to Taiwan really helped global cooperation on critical issues like the environment. Not.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 500 new monthly donors in the next 10 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy