Troublemaking can never promote stability: China Daily editorial

Whenever, and wherever, the United States vows to bring peace, stability and progress, people are always wary as that invariably results in just the opposite. Likewise when it holds aloft the banner of human rights to preach freedom and democracy, as that often foreshadows the above.

So it should be of concern to the region and the world that after the US State Department approved a $100 million sale of the Patriot missile system and services to Taiwan on Monday, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency claimed that the deal would "assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region".

In saying that helping to defend Taiwan is to defend "democracy", the US is engaging in some classic misdirection while it employs some sleight of hand to put more pressure on Beijing.

The adulatory "highly-welcome" response of the Democratic Progressive Party to the US' approval of the deal belies the bravado with which it has dismissed the Chinese mainland's warnings of the consequences should it recklessly persist with its present course of action, as it serves instead to expose its fears of losing the US' favor.

A "military balance" across the Taiwan Straits, the objective the US has disingenuously proposed to justify its arms sale to the island this time, has never been attained, and will never be realized. Emboldening the island's secessionist-inclined ruling party with munitioned false confidence will only make Taiwan a potential powder keg on which foolhardy daredevils are playing with matches.

The US' Taiwan Relations Act does not qualify as a legal basis for such arms deals and other US moves, open and clandestine, to support the island's secessionists, as China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs once again reminded Washington. The sales of weapons by the US to Taiwan severely violate the one-China principle and its pledged commitments in the three joint communiques which are the bedrock documents for its diplomatic relations with China.

Feb 27 marks the 50th anniversary of The Shanghai Communique, the first of the three historic joint statements. Over the past half century, relations have experienced ups and downs but the general momentum has been upward till recently, to the benefit of both.

It is a human tendency to attribute to another the cause of troubles that are the result of one's own mistakes and failings. And this is the trap that the US has fallen into now, blaming China for a relative decline in its abilities that is the result of its own complacency and neglect.

Instead of trying to use Taiwan as a pawn in its maximum pressure campaign against Beijing, Washington should reexamine its attitudes based on what it said in that first communique. Particularly, its recognition that "Peace in Asia and peace in the world requires efforts both to reduce immediate tensions and to eliminate the basic causes of conflict".

It is Washington's collusion with the secessionist-minded DPP —which incidentally dictates to the more than 20 million residents on the island that they have no choice but to participate in its strategy to contain China — that is the immediate cause of tensions.