"Beijing's new ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, refused to rule out using force after a visit last week by high-ranking US politician Nancy Pelosi fuelled further tensions, sparking China's biggest ever live fire exercises around the territory. The envoy said on the sixth day of the military drills: 'We can never rule out the option to use other means. So when necessary, when compelled, we are ready to use all necessary means. As to what does it mean by "necessary means?" You can use your imagination.' Mr Xiao said China had been 'so patient' waiting to be reunified with Taiwan and urged people to use their 'imagination' as to what the global superpower could do. China, reacting to a visit to Taiwan last week by Nancy Pelosi, the US House speaker, has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China's coast and missiles over its capital, Taipei, and into waters surrounding the island since Thursday." - Daily Mail
Obviously, we want China to stop its threats and to reconcile itself with an independent Taiwan. Friendship is the best possible outcome in the long run. Persuading China to be more gentle is the only way to achieve that without bloodshed. So now is a bad time to abandon the strategic ambiguity which has actually preserved Taiwan's peace for quite some time. What the world needs is time. Time to defang Putin. Time for China to find a role as in influential but amicable trading power, and not a global bully. Time for the US to listen a bit harder when it comes to local sensitivities. There's a great solution out there. But it wasn't helped one bit by Pelosi's visit.
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