Taiwan protest against Pelosi's visit - Photo: Telesur

In early August, the top leader of the US House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stole like a thief into Taiwan which is Chinese territory. She did so without securing the permission of Chinese authorities and against clearly stated Chinese objections. This hooligan behaviour was paraded as being necessary to uphold a "rules-based international order", despite the fact that it destroys all norms of international relations between countries and of international diplomacy.

The British government, in the person of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, instead of summoning the US ambassador and supporting China in their objections, summoned the Chinese ambassador. She accused China of "increasingly aggressive behaviour" which "threaten peace and stability in the region". She condemned "in the strongest terms China's escalation in the region around Taiwan, as seen through our recent G7 statement" [1]. A statement in which the G7 countries [2] support US actions riding roughshod over just Chinese objections and confirm their "shared commitment to maintaining the rules-based international order, peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and beyond".

It is an indisputable fact that Taiwan is recognised as part of China, a fact that these G7 countries have to admit in their statement. However these actions only confirm that the "rules-based international order" are nothing but a set of rules made up to justify their actions, which they use to threaten peace and stability in the world. These actions of the G7 in the Asia Pacific are part of the brinkmanship led by the US, to attempt to see how far these big powers can go against established international norms and agreements to provoke the countries that do not accept this concocted "rules-based international order".

Reports also show that the British Foreign Affairs Committee, in a race of the British Parliament to provoke China, was planning to visit Taiwan earlier this year in a visit that was postponed but now scheduled for "probably November, or early December" [3]. However, Liz Truss speaking as a prospective candidate for leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister attempted to distance the Prime Minister from such a provocation when in an interview [4] she said, "We have a long standing position that the foreign secretary, the Ministry of Defence and the Prime Minister don't visit Taiwan."

These provocations against China in recent times have included the US and Britain sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait, which is the strategic waters between China and Taiwan, and holding war games in the vicinity. Now US fighter jets, along with those of Taiwan, are flying above Taiwan, and further increasing tensions as China launches air and sea exercises over its Chinese territory.

What is more, the AUKUS "tri-lateral" nuclear submarine pact signed between the US, Britain and Australia in September 2021 is a new hostile military alliance in the Asia Pacific aimed against China and the DPRK. The AUKUS pact means that Australia can buy nuclear powered submarines from the US and Britain. This unilaterally cancelled an earlier contract for Australia to buy non-nuclear powered submarines from France. This pact is also widely recognised to involve Taiwan in a secret deal on submarines hostile to China.

The US and Britain are already involved in secret deals with Taiwan to build submarines for "defence" against China. According to a Reuters investigation [5], "Taipei's chief foreign weapons supplier, the United States, has provided key technology, including combat-system components and sonars. But assistance is coming from far beyond America.....Defence companies from the United Kingdom, which like America operates a fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile and attack submarines, have provided crucial support....In a conflict, say experts, Taiwan's submarines would allow it to help the U.S. and allies bottle up the PLA Navy within the first island chain, the string of islands running from Japan to Borneo that enclose China's coast." In other words, whilst the US and British continue to deny it, Taiwan is secretly a partner in the AUKUS nuclear military pact against China.

The entire spectre of forceful reunification and scenario of China attacking Taiwan is a US narrative and falsification to cause trouble and justify its continued military build up in the Asia Pacific and Britain is in the forefront of this alongside the US. The reality is that Taiwan is Chinese territory. China, not Taiwan, is seated at the United Nations and a member of its Security Council.

On the evening of August 2, following Nancy Pelosi's visit to China's Taiwan region, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng had urgently summoned the US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, and lodged stern representations and strong protests over Pelosi's visit to the Taiwan region. Xie noted, "The move is extremely egregious in nature and the consequences are extremely serious. China will not sit idly by." Xie said that "the US government must be held accountable. For a while, the US has said one thing and done another thing, constantly distorted and hollowed out the one-China principle." Amongst other things Xie stressed that "the trend of the times cannot be reversed, the will of the people is not to be defied, and those who play with fire will perish by it".

The fact is that the US has already been burned, as the peoples at home and abroad have witnessed one failure after the other of US wars of occupation for regime change in every part of the world, from Korea and Vietnam to Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Wars which caused millions of deaths and left human and environmental devastation in their wake. Repeatedly resorting to more violence and wars of destruction will not provide humanity or the US a way out of the crisis caused by its striving for world hegemony. Certainly, having witnessed the US defeat in Afghanistan, few consider that the US could succeed against China.

The working class and people must stand against the "rules-based international order" being imposed by the US, Britain, and other powers in the name of the G7 or NATO for their own interests, which is leading to the escalation of provocations and conflicts in the world. The necessity is to renew international relations based on international law, declaring that international issues and world security is not settled by force of arms, or by provoking and escalating conflicts. The working class and people must take the initiative to bring about an anti-war government as a necessity for the people to live in a peaceful world!

Notes 1. Preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait: G7 Foreign Ministers' statement
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/preserving-peace-and-stability-across-the-taiwan-strait-g7-foreign-ministers-statement
2. G7 - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the High Representative of the European Union
3. British MPs plan visit to Taiwan as tension with China simmers The Guardian - August 1 2022
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/01/british-mps-plan-visit-to-taiwan-as-tension-with-china-simmers
4. Tory leadership: Liz Truss says she will not visit Taiwan if elected prime minister - News Independent TV - August 3 2022
https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/truss-taiwan-tory-leadership-debate-b2138518.html
5. Taiwan's friends aid stealthy submarine project as China threat rises - Reuters - November 29 2021
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-submarines/

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