No one will convince Beijing to act against Moscow anymore, said political scientist Boris Mezhúyev.
China failed to prevent the arrival of the senior US legislator Nancy Pelosi in Taiwan: her plane landed there on Tuesday despite warnings of “resolute countermeasures”. But now that the speaker of the US House of Representatives has left that self-governing territory, relations between Washington and Beijing will never be the same as before, several experts warn.
The same day that the third most prominent person in the US political hierarchy arrived on the island, China began military exercises with live fire in the Taiwan Strait, and warned of an additional series of such practices as of August 4 in various areas around the island. He also imposed economic sanctions that affect imports of Taiwanese food products.
Pelosi’s arrival at the Taipei airport sparked intense mobilization of war equipment in the area near the island, both by China and by Taiwan and the United States, intensifying fears of a possible military conflict.
“Xi Jinping will not turn the other cheek”
Political commentator Boris Mezhuyev told the Vzgliad newspaper that if the Chinese had somehow managed to keep Pelosi’s plane away from the island, the United States would have suffered a loss of reputation: “It would have been clear that Washington had succumbed to Beijing’s blackmail.” . “But Pelosi landed safely, and this is a slap in the face for china. President Xi Jinping will not turn the other cheek,” the expert believes.
Mezhúyev considers that from now on the war machine directed towards Taiwan will be constantly prepared and that “a military action against the island could take place this year”.
“Maybe Xi Jinping will make some kind of speech soon, announcing a course of harsh confrontation with Washington on the Taiwan issue. No one will convince China now that the US is willing to talk with it. And no one will convince China that act against Russia,” Mezhuyev said.
The expert assures that “from now on a cold war begins” between China and the US, which “will put other countries, which in general would not want to choose between the two, before an election“.
“Humanity as a whole will only have losses with this: we are talking about a new cold warcomparable to what the Soviet Union had with the United States,” he specified.
“One more step towards a military conflict”
Political scientist Timofei Bordachev, director of the Eurasian program of the Valdai international debating club, also believes that Beijing will not tolerate humiliation by the United States.
Although he doubts that what happened will have much impact on China’s reputation among its Asian neighbors at this time, the expert believes that the humiliation received from the West will give them a important lesson to the Chinese.
“There will be a heightened awareness of who they are dealing with, and how limited their ability is at the moment to defend their interests without resorting to force,” he said.
He assured that relations between China and the United States will worsen. “One more step has been taken towards a military conflict on a large scale between these countries”, considers the analyst.
- Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has aggravated tensions between the US and China, whose relations are at their worst state since both countries established diplomatic ties in 1979. This is the first trip by a Speaker of the House of Representatives to the island in 25 years.
- Beijing regards Taiwan as inalienable part of its territory, and insists that any negotiations with the island that bypass the central government violate the key principle of its one-China policy. Most countries, including Russia, recognize the island as an integral part of the People’s Republic of China.
- Although Washington does not diplomatically recognize Taiwan – which is self-governed since 1949 with its own administration, as an independent country, maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity towards the island, reserving the right to maintain special relations with Taipei, which, in his opinion, makes its own decisions.
Source: RT
