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China freezes cooperation with the US on key issues and sanctions Nancy Pelosi after her visit to Taiwan

2022-08-05T10:26:47.576Z


Beijing suspends collaboration on environment and judicial matters and cancels military meetings in response to a trip it believes undermined its "sovereignty and territorial integrity"


The escalation of tension around Taiwan continues to grow after the controversial visit of the president of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.

Beijing announced this Friday in a statement that it will sanction the American politician and her close relatives, in a gesture of unusual harshness against Pelosi, the third US authority and the second in the line of succession of President Joe Biden, only behind from Vice President Kamala Harris.

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

one-China

policy, and threatening peace. and the stability of the Taiwan Strait”, assures 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 will surely worsen the already deteriorated relations with Beijing.

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 Trump Administration, just as the current president, Joe Biden, arrived at the White House.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also announced this Friday that it is suspending part of the cooperation between the two countries on issues such as climate change and canceling key military meetings.

Among the issues that will be affected by Beijing's retaliation against Pelosi's visit to Taiwan is the cancellation of bilateral meetings on such important issues as cooperation between China and the US in the repatriation of illegal immigrants, in criminal legal assistance , in the fight against transnational crime and drug control.

Talks between the two countries on climate change are also suspended and military and labor meetings of the two governments are canceled.

More information

Why Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan scares the world

The keys to the conflict between China and the US

The White House, for its part, summoned the Chinese ambassador to Washington, Qin Gang, on Thursday to condemn the escalation of tension around Taiwan and reiterate that the US does not want a crisis in the region,

The Washington Post reported on Friday.

.

"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.

Nancy Pelosi shakes hands with her Japanese counterpart, Speaker of the Japanese House of Representatives Hiroyuki Hosoda, in Tokyo on Friday.

KAZUHIRO NOGI (AFP)

Pelosi in Japan

In the midst of all this escalation of the situation, Nancy Pelosi called this morning "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

status quo

, but to maintain it.

"Our delegation does not seek to change the

status quo

in Asia or Taiwan," said the Democrat during a press conference at the US 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 she avoided making public comments about her visit to Taiwan, in Japan, the 82-year-old politician who holds the third-highest institutional position in the United States and is also second in line to succession to President Joe Biden, has not been content: "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 at a press conference.

“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 meet President Yoon Suk-yeol in person during her brief stay in Seoul, but the 82-year-old legislator took advantage of the visit to visit the Panmunjom Joint Security Area, in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.

In Tokyo, he did meet with the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, who assured Pelosi that his country "has requested the immediate cancellation of the military maneuvers" since they represent a "serious problem that affects our national security and that of our citizens. ”.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense affirms that five of the at least 11 missiles that China has fired towards its territory landed in its exclusive economic zone, something unusual that has provoked a diplomatic protest before the Chinese Government, to which Beijing has responded by disfiguring the Japanese authorities for having signed the joint statement of the G7 and the European Union on this crisis.

In that document released this Thursday, the seven most industrialized nations in the world and Brussels affirmed that there was "no justification for using a visit [Pelosi's] as a pretext for aggressive military activity."

China has also protested that statement to EU envoys in Beijing.

The American politician and the Japanese leader 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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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-05

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