The People’s Daily has asked me – for the first time – to comment on the Taiwan conflict formation in the wake of Nancy Pelosi’s unnecessary and provocative visit to the island some time ago.
Here is the result
People’s Daily English App – August 11, 2022
Global Times – August 11, 2022
People’s Daily online – August 15, 2022
Newspaper of People’s Daily – August 13, 2022
The interview was conducted by the Stockholm editor of China Daily, Yin Miao who was very kind and professional and accepted my late additions here and there to the draft text. I was particularly happy about the addition concerning my basic attitude towards the use of military means.
But read it yourself:
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Stockholm (People’s Daily) – Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and Taiwan is an internal issue concerning China’s sovereignty, said Jan Oberg, an internationally renowned Danish scholar and director of the Swedish independent think tank Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF).
He made the above remarks in an interview with People’s Daily’s reporter based in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday.
“All Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China,” Oberg said, adding, this is the consensus reached by Premier Zhou En-lai of the People’s Republic of China and President Richard Nixon of the USA in 1972 and agreed to in the Joint Communiqué of the USA and the People’s Republic of China (Shanghai Communiqué).
Oberg said that the US government has been meddling in China’s internal affairs on the Taiwan issue through military exercises and arms sales to Taiwan for many years, slowly shifting from the US commitments included in the Shanghai Joint Communiqué toward an unprincipled position on Taiwan.
Oberg pointed out that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan is “not a private tour, but an US visit,” he said. “In my opinion, Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan to undermine regional security and stability is an unnecessarily provocative act…. Pelosi insisted on visiting Taiwan on a military plane on the premise of knowing China’s official principle and position on Taiwan. “
Oberg said that the Taiwan issue and the Ukraine crisis are fundamentally different, and there is no similarity at all between the two. “Ukraine has been an independent sovereign state for more than 30 years and is also a member of the United Nations. Historically, Taiwan has been a part of China since ancient times.”
Oberg said, “As a peace research scholar with a Gandhian mind for nonviolence and the UN Charter provision of making peace by peaceful means, I oppose all forms of military activities, nuclear weapons and violence.”
However, in terms of the countermeasures taken by China so far, they are merely symbolic in military terms and not “overdone or overreacted,” because China’s fundamental purpose is not to hurt the Taiwanese people, but to express China’s affirmative attitude and position of serious concern towards the “Taiwan independence” forces and their supporters.
That said, all sides must avoid each and every tit-for-tat spiral that could end in real war.
Humanity’s urgent problems cannot be solved in this 11th hour if China, the West and everybody else waste time and energy on fighting each other. The future world is for those who, like China and the Belt and Road Initiative, want cooperation instead of confrontation and provocation.
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I’m grateful for every little support from you for my free writing. It is quickly done, easy and secure. Many thanks!
