This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/bellicose-us-china-rhetoric-looms-over-inauguration-of-taiwan-president/2020/05/20/e63e9fe4-9a66-11ea-ad79-eef7cd734641_story.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_world

The article has changed 10 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 4 Version 5
Bellicose U.S.-China rhetoric looms over inauguration of Taiwan’s president As U.S.-China rhetoric grows harsher, new risks emerge with Taiwan drawn into the mix
(about 7 hours later)
SEOUL — The inauguration of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's second term was overshadowed Wednesday by a war of words between Beijing and Washington, underscoring how the U.S.-aligned island has become a growing focus of the rivalry between the world powers. Rising tensions between the United States and China brought fresh mudslinging Wednesday as a sharp dispute over responsibility for the novel coronavirus pandemic spills into new forums such as Taiwan.
China issued angry warnings after senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, sent rare, high-level messages to congratulate Tsai on the day of her swearing-in ceremony, at which the Democratic Progressive Party leader reiterated her rejection of a “one China” principle that Beijing considers a cornerstone of relations. In the span of several hours, the feud seesawed from Taipei to Beijing to the Internet, where an animated "credibility test" on Chinese state TV's Twitter feed mocked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to absorb the island by force, if necessary. With nationalist sentiment running hot in China, military officials and well-known foreign affairs commentators have openly pondered whether to invade the island while the United States, its main backer, is distracted by the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump then lashed out at China for a "worldwide killing" from covid-19 — part of messages that could become talking points in the presidential election campaign.
The White House salvos have sought to keep a focus on China's early response to the virus and what Trump has called a "China-centric" deference at the World Health Organization. China, in turn, has portrayed itself as a good global citizen willing to work with the United Nations and other countries to defeat the pandemic.
But the longer-range Trump strategy appeared aimed at deflecting attention over the U.S. handling of the pandemic — including the sometimes conflicting messages from the Trump administration and health experts and a reported covid-19 death toll that is the highest in the world.
Taiwan’s president wins second term with landslide victory over pro-Beijing rivalTaiwan’s president wins second term with landslide victory over pro-Beijing rival
The U.S.-China bitterness also surfaced in another forum Wednesday as President Trump tweeted that “some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China” for the covid-19 pandemic. Part of Trump's criticism has grounding, particularly China's silencing of doctors and its denial that the virus was spreading person-to-person after it emerged late last year in Wuhan. But Trump's claims — outlined in a four-page letter to the WHO on Monday — mix legitimate criticism with broad inaccuracies such as the timeline of Chinese and WHO actions.
“Please explain to this dope that it was the ‘incompetence of China’, and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing!” Trump continued. He also skims over the fact that he praised China and the WHO for months.
It was unclear what Chinese remarks prompted Trump’s tweet. But it came after an animated video titled “Pompeo’s credibility test” appeared on the Twitter feed of Chinese state TV, challenging Pompeo’s views on China’s role in fighting the pandemic. Still, Trump appears to be shaping his reelection campaign as it goes — using language that echoes his populist anti-China rhetoric during the 2016 run.
Chinese officials and state media have taken a series of recent potshots at Pompeo over Trump administration’s asserations, including unsupported claims that the virus could have originated in a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan. "The pandemic has shown once again the vital importance of economic independence and bringing supply chains back from China and other countries," Trump said Tuesday, drawing connections between the pandemic — which Trump called "the plague" — and the global economic free fall.
China viewed the Trump administration’s messages as provocations. Its Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Pompeo’s message “seriously endangered relations between the two countries and two militaries and seriously damaged peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” Pompeo opened a news conference Wednesday with a long list of complaints about China, saying focus on the pandemic is obscuring what he called the larger picture of risk posed to the United States by the Chinese Communist Party.
The People’s Liberation Army, it added, has a “firm will, full confidence, and sufficient capacity to frustrate any form of external interference and Taiwan independence plots.” "We greatly underestimated the degree to which Beijing is ideologically and politically hostile to free nations," he told reporters. "The whole world is waking up to that fact."
In a similar statement, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said that “reunification” — or the takeover of de facto independent Taiwan — “is a historical inevitability of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.” The Foreign Ministry in Beijing vowed unspecified “countermeasures.” Beijing, however, is answering with its own swift counterpunches.
The U.S.-China bitterness surfaced in another forum Wednesday as President Trump tweeted that “some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China” for the covid-19 pandemic. On Tuesday — after Trump issued a 30-day ultimatum to the WHO to make unspecified reforms — Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, described Trump's letter as an effort to "to mislead the public, smear China's efforts and shift the blame of U.S. incompetence to others."
It was unclear what Chinese remarks prompted Trump’s tweet. But it came after an animated video titled “Pompeo’s credibility test” appeared on the Twitter feed of Chinese state TV, challenging Pompeo’s views on China’s role in fighting the pandemic. It's another indication of how fast the former diplomatic guardrails have fallen.
Chinese officials and state media have taken a series of recent potshots at Pompeo over Trump administration’s asserations, including unsupported claims that the virus could have originated in a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan. In Taiwan — for decades one of the most sensitive issues between Washington and Beijing — the start of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's second term on Wednesday was overshadowed by the war of words.
In his statement on Taiwan, Pompeo called Taiwan’s democracy an “inspiration to the region and the world” and said the U.S. partnership with Taiwan “will continue to flourish.” Although the remarks were measured, and American presidents have customarily congratulated their Taiwanese counterparts, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry noted that it was the first time a U.S. secretary of state had sent such a note. China issued angry warnings after senior U.S. officials, including Pompeo and deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, sent rare, high-level messages to congratulate Tsai. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to absorb the island by force, if necessary.
In December 2016, then-President-elect Trump also broke diplomatic tradition by receiving a congratulatory call from Tsai. China's Defense Ministry said Pompeo's message "seriously endangered relations between the two countries and two militaries and seriously damaged peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait."
China is highly sensitive to speeches by U.S. officials, including mid- and high-level State Department officials, in Taiwan and other activities that resemble formal diplomatic exchanges. The People's Liberation Army, it added, has a "firm will, full confidence, and sufficient capacity to frustrate any form of external interference and Taiwan independence plots."
It has sought to punish Taiwan by cutting off its diplomatic ties after Tsai, who does not acknowledge the concept that Taiwan and the mainland are part of an inalienable “one China,” assumed power in 2016. And China particularly reviles Pompeo, who has been the outward face of the Trump administration’s hawkish attitude toward China. In recent weeks, the Chinese military has sent warplanes and an aircraft carrier into the strait, and U.S. forces have been conducting large-scale flight and surveillance operations off China's southern coast.
In recent weeks, Taiwan has become a focal point of U.S.-China frictions that range from technology to trade to coronavirus geopolitics. Until the effort failed this week, Washington had pushed for Taiwan’s inclusion at the World Healthy Assembly, which China has blocked for years as part of its diplomatic isolation campaign. This month, commentators in China have hotly debated the need to expand China's nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal after the State Department published a paper arguing for fitting low-yield nuclear warheads onto submarine-launched missiles.
The Trump administration this month also successfully persuaded the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to build a factory in Arizona in what was considered an attempt to bring a crucial chipmaker closer to the United States and farther from China’s orbit.
“Pompeo is clearly doing it to challenge Beijing,” the Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial Wednesday about the U.S. administration’s well wishes for Tsai. “It is intended to provoke the Chinese mainland, throwing out cards one by one as a game with Beijing.”
Xi’s Taiwan problem isn’t going awayXi’s Taiwan problem isn’t going away
Tensions have been rising in recent weeks, with the Chinese military sending warplanes and an aircraft carrier into the strait and U.S. forces conducting large-scale flight and surveillance operations off China’s southern coast. This month, commentators in China have also hotly debated the need to expand China’s nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal after the State Department published a paper arguing for fitting low-yield nuclear warheads onto submarine-launched missiles. In her inauguration speech, Tsai said that she wanted to coexist peacefully with China but that she would not accept Beijing's offer of a political framework that would bring Taiwan into the fold on the condition of semiautonomy.
In her inauguration speech, Tsai said that she wanted to coexist peacefully with China but that she would not accept Beijing’s offer of a political framework that would bring Taiwan into the fold on the condition of semiautonomy. "We will not accept the Beijing authorities' use of 'one country, two systems' to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo," said Tsai, who swept into another term with a 75 percent approval rating.
“We will not accept the Beijing authorities’ use of ‘one country, two systems’ to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo,” said Tsai, who swept into another term with a 75 percent approval rating. In response, the Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper said "Pompeo is clearly doing it to challenge Beijing."
The ceremony at a historic Japanese-built guesthouse to begin Tsai’s second four-year term followed a remarkable 18-month turnaround in her political fortunes. After losing badly in local elections in 2018, Tsai mounted a comeback helped by her efficient coronavirus response and large-scale protests in Hong Kong in 2019 that raised public skepticism in Taiwan about the Chinese idea of “one country, two systems.” As the rhetoric intensifies on both sides, Pompeo has become the scapegoat of choice for Beijing officials and state media.
Tsai rallied her citizens on Wednesday around the country’s pandemic response, which public health experts generally have hailed as a model. He has been called by an "enemy of humankind" and a "super-spreader" of a "political virus." Most of the ire is focused on the Trump administration's references to unsupported theories that the virus could have come from a Wuhan laboratory.
“This sense of pride in our country, this community’s shared destiny, and the memories of these past months will live on in all of our hearts,” Tsai said. “This is what solidarity feels like.” China took another swipe at Pompeo with an animated clip produced by a wing of Chinese state TV. The video, titled "Pompeo's credibility test," appeared on the Twitter feed of Chinese state TV, challenging Pompeo's views on China's role in fighting the pandemic.
In a largely moderate speech, Tsai said she supports dialogue with China and would work with “the leader on the other side” to promote stable cross-strait relations. Hours later, Trump tweeted that "some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China" for the virus — a possible reference to the Pompeo video, but the president did not elaborate.
Kwei-bo Huang, a professor at National Chengchi University and foreign policy adviser to the previous Kuomintang government, said there is no chance that Tsai would hold talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping under current political conditions. "Please explain to this dope that it was the 'incompetence of China', and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing!" Trump continued.
“That’s just lip service,” he said. “Tsai’s speech was very passive in dealing with the mainland policy.” It's a theme that the White House is increasingly pushing.
From China’s perspective, perhaps a more provocative address came from Pottinger. He sent a video message that quoted dissident Chinese astrophysicist Fang Lizhi, who participated in a pro-democracy student movement that was forcefully put down in a bloody crackdown in June 1989. On Sunday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told ABC news that China was responsible for allowing the coronavirus to "seed" around the world by not stopping infected passengers from traveling in the early weeks of the outbreak.
Although the congratulatory video was ostensibly aimed at Taiwan, it was the second time in a month that Pottinger, an influential China hawk in the administration and a Mandarin speaker, appeared to indirectly address the mainland Chinese public to advocate liberal democracy as a universal, rather than Western, system. His previous speech on May 4 was censored in China and provoked a torrent of criticism from state media outlets that lasted more than a week. The escalating attacks on both sides reflect significant changes.
“Taiwan learned critical lessons from the 2003 SARS epidemic, and applied them in advance of the outbreak of the mysterious disease that the Chinese state-controlled media called the ‘Wuhan virus,’ ” Pottinger said Wednesday in a swipe at Beijing. “We will continue to press other countries and organizations, like the World Health Organization, to put human lives above politics and choose freedom above repression.” Trump has often referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a "friend" and, in the past, repeatedly praised China's response to the outbreak.
Other U.S. officials and lawmakers, including Assistant Secretary of State David Stilwell and Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), also sent congratulatory messages. So did former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who called Taiwan’s democracy and coronavirus response examples for the world. For China, it shows an evolution in its propaganda priorities. Over the past decade, Beijing has taken halting steps to upgrade its spin operations for the digital age, rolling out English-language animated cartoons and pro-China rap songs online, sometimes with the help of Western consultancies.
“America’s support for Taiwan must remain strong, principled, and bipartisan,” Biden wrote on Twitter. The trade war with the United States pushed these Western-looking propaganda efforts out of beta testing.
Beijing has tasked ambassadors and other officials with setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts for the first time to spar in real time with the Trump administration, despite the platforms being blocked for viewing inside China.
The escalating friction is a "perfect storm" of several factors, said Sheena Greitens, assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, with "tough-on-China" campaigning ahead of the election and the global pandemic laying bare some of the transparency problems in China's government.
"Regardless, one lesson for the future is that American strategy and national security shouldn't depend on or assume transparency from China," she said, "because it's not an empirically valid assumption to make given the nature and structure of China's domestic politics."
Emily Rauhala in Washington contributed to this report.
‘One China’ dispute means one big headache for Taiwan in coronavirus crisis‘One China’ dispute means one big headache for Taiwan in coronavirus crisis
Taiwan’s ‘born independent’ millennials are becoming Xi Jinping’s lost generationTaiwan’s ‘born independent’ millennials are becoming Xi Jinping’s lost generation
Taiwan beat covid-19 and won friends. At the WHO, it’s still fighting for a seat at the table.Taiwan beat covid-19 and won friends. At the WHO, it’s still fighting for a seat at the table.
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the worldToday’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign newsLike Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news