By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer
   
It seems the US is courting real trouble with its irrational policy of provoking China that may spiral out of control to cause permanent damage to Washington.
This is evident by the recent visit to the breakaway island of Taiwan by US Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Alex Azar – the highest-level visit by an American official to Taipei ever since the détente of the 1970s between Washington and Beijing.
As Azar ended his 3-day visit on Wednesday, China was swift to react, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warning during a daily news briefing in Beijing: "Those who play with fire will get burnt.”
These words are not an empty threat in view of China’s vast potential, coupled with resolve to check the continued incursions of the US in what the world, including the US, regards as sovereign Chinese territory.
China claims full sovereignty over the island under the globally-recognized "One China” policy and almost all world countries, including the US, recognize that sovereignty.
Beijing has made it clear that Taiwan, which broke away in 1949, should eventually return peacefully to mainland China.
Last Monday, as Azar headed into a meeting with President Tsai of Taiwan, Chinese fighter jets crossed the Taiwan Strait median line, an unofficial divider which both sides have traditionally respected to avoid conflict.
Though the US delegation was careful in not calling Taiwan "a country”, the visit was a deliberate provocation. It is being seen around the world as an escalation bid by the Americans to irritate the Chinese, following Washington’s failure in the trade war and the illegal intrusion of the US navy in the South China Sea.
Beijing is closely monitoring such developments and is not in a hurry to lose its proverbial patience, since it knows that the thuggish US president, Donald Trump, is on his way out of the White House, and the next Chief Executive is likely to scale the tensions that is neither beneficial for the two countries nor for the peace of the region, if not of the world.
China has the ability to send its ships to the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico on justification of its legal and legitimate diplomatic ties with several friendly countries of the Latin America region, but has refrained from doing so, for the sake of world peace and cooperation.
The present regime in Washington does not believe in international cooperation as is evident by its roguish attitude towards not just China but almost the whole world as is evident by its policy of economic terrorism and flexing of its old and aging military muscles in different parts of the world.
At the same time, the US has not missed a single opportunity to meddle in the affairs of Hong Kong, although without success.
As part of Washington’s feverish anti-China tirade, Azar on Tuesday criticized China’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, repeating allegations made by Trump, the very person who is the cause of almost 200,000 American deaths because of his mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis.
All this indicates that the confusion prevailing in the US official circles, and that if Trump and his criminal clique were to resort to any misadventure against China on the assumption of ensuring a second 4-year term for the incumbent, Washington could find itself badly burned as China has duly warned.