The tension around Taiwan continues to escalate after the controversial visit to the island by the president of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Beijing announced this Friday that it is freezing cooperation with Washington on key issues such as the environment and suspending high-level military meetings with the world’s greatest power. She will also sanction the American politician and her close relatives, in a gesture of unusual harshness against Pelosi, the third authority in the United States and the second in the line of succession to President Joe Biden.

“Despite China’s serious concerns and strong opposition, Pelosi insisted on visiting Taiwan, seriously interfering in China’s internal affairs, undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, trampling on the policy of one china and threatening the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, ”says the statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Chinese decision leaves the United States government, which had advised against Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, in a very delicate position and with the prospect of worsening already deteriorated relations with Beijing.

In response to Pelosi’s visit, Beijing has suspended some of the cooperation between the two countries on issues such as climate change and maritime security, and has canceled key military meetings. In addition, the retaliation includes the suspension of bilateral meetings on the cooperation between China and the United States in the repatriation of illegal immigrants, criminal judicial assistance, the fight against transnational crimes and drug control. The foreign spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, has blamed the United States for causing the crisis. “The response measures are justified, necessary, appropriate and not excessive at all,” she defended.

Pelosi is the highest-ranking US official affected by Beijing’s sanctions. Last year, China announced sanctions against former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served during the Donald Trump Administration, just as the current president, Joe Biden, arrived at the White House.

Before this announcement by Beijing, the White House had already summoned the Chinese ambassador to Washington, Qin Gang, on Thursday to condemn the military maneuvers around Taiwan and reiterate that the United States does not want a crisis in the region, according to reports. this Friday The Washington Post. “After China’s actions, we summoned Ambassador Qin Gang to the White House to discuss China’s provocative acts with him,” an official spokesman told the US newspaper. John Kirby, a government spokesman on national security issues, later confirmed Qin’s summons for his country’s “irresponsible” behavior, without detailing who received it or making reference to Qin’s unilateral suspension of cooperation. Beijing.

“We neither seek nor want a crisis,” Kirby has said. “But they will not dissuade us from operating by sea and by air in the Western Pacific in full compliance with international law, as we have been doing for decades, defending Taiwan and a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he reports from New York. Maria Antonia Sanchez-Vallejo. The spokesman for the National Security Council has told reporters that the US has nothing to rectify on Taiwan and has appealed to Beijing to back down on its show of military force. “The Chinese can do a lot to defuse tension by ceasing their provocative military exercises and lowering their tone,” Kirby said, reiterating that Washington will maintain military contacts “at the highest level” with China.

Beijing’s forceful response to Pelosi’s visit – which did not last even 24 hours, but served to meet Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and several pro-democracy activists – has drawn criticism from the G-7 and the Union Union, which has been branded as “unjustified”. This Friday, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, expressed at the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that China’s reaction to the visit of the Democratic politician to Taiwan is “flagrantly provocative”, and that the Asian giant not only seeks to intimidate the island, but also its neighbors. The US Secretary of State assured that “there is no justification for what [China] has done”, although then he tried again to appease Beijing by reiterating that his country “is not looking for a crisis”.

Pelosi sees “ridiculous” the idea that she has harmed Taiwan

Amid the aggravation of tension, Pelosi called this Friday as “ridiculous” the statement that her visit to Taiwan could harm the island, and assured that the objective of her trip is not to change the the state in whichbut keep it. “Our delegation does not seek to change the the state in which in Asia or Taiwan,” assured the Democratic legislator during a press conference at the United States Embassy in Tokyo, the last stop on an Asian tour that has also taken her this week to Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea.

Although in Seoul he avoided commenting on his visit to Taiwan, in Japan, the 82-year-old policy did not hold back: “If we do not denounce the human rights situation in China for commercial interests, we lose all credibility and moral authority to do so in any other part of the world,” he said. “China has tried to isolate Taiwan, and may try to prevent Taiwan from visiting or participating in other places, but they will not prevent us from traveling there. Our friendship with Taiwan is strong.”

Pelosi did not personally meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol during her brief stay in Seoul, but took advantage of the visit to visit the Panmunjom Joint Security Area, in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. In Tokyo he met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who assured Pelosi that his country “has called for the immediate cancellation of military exercises” around Taiwan. “It is a serious problem that affects our national security and that of our citizens,” added the Japanese head of government.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense affirms that five missiles that China has fired landed in its exclusive economic zone, something unusual that has provoked a diplomatic protest before the Chinese Government, to which Beijing has responded by making the Japanese authorities ugly for having signed the joint statement of the G-7 and the European Union on this crisis. In that document, released Thursday, the seven most industrialized nations in the world and Brussels affirmed that there was “no justification in using a visit [la de Pelosi] as a pretext for aggressive military activity. China has also protested that statement to EU envoys in Beijing.

The American and Japanese politicians exchanged “opinions on the international situation, including the war in Ukraine, the situation with China and Korea and the achievement of a world without nuclear weapons,” according to Kishida himself after the meeting.

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