Havana Cuba
On May 1, 2018, diplomatic relations between the Dominican Republic and the People’s Republic of China were established, a decision that at that time we described as courageous, timely, historic and necessary. Although it should have been taken 20 or 25 years ago, the fear of the rulers of the time prevented the country from expanding its relations with the world; It was a late decision, like so many other things that lead us to be late for the appointment.
When China decides to establish relations with any nation, large or small, rich or poor, it does so based on the principle of recognizing only one China, which is why the current government found diplomatic relations with China that were signed not in the personal capacity of the ruler in turn, but on behalf of the State, the government and the Dominican people. The successor of the past government has no alternative but to assume and comply with the terms on which this important and historic decision was made.
This step was not to the liking of our main trading partner, the United States of America, but they must have understood that it was a sovereign decision, that, as such, they had already taken it 40 years ago in an international context very different from that of today; they adopted it in the middle of the cold war and the world understood that it was their sovereign right. In the same way, for this small, poor, Caribbean country, with the right to exercise its sovereignty for its benefit and convenience.
The world is clearly aware of the double-standard behavior of the United States of America in its hegemonic and interventionist policy. With their visit to Taiwan on August 2, led by the outgoing Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, they have seriously infringed China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, also violating joint commitments and agreements with China, such as the Joint Communiqué China and the United States, of 1979, on the establishment of Diplomatic Relations, where they establish that “…they recognize the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the only legitimate Government of China. Within this context, the people of the United States of America will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.”
The violation of agreements and commitments seems to be a customary practice of its ferocious hegemony. On June 23, 1963, then US President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin and delivered a provocative speech at the Schönberg town hall, where he declared himself a “Berliner”. It was about causing propaganda damage to the German Democratic Republic, a socialist country, in whose capital this capitalist enclave was found, the result of the merger of the sectors into which the city had been divided, after the defeat of Nazism, those belonging to the United States, France and Great Britain. That coarse symbolic statement was also directed against the Soviet Union, at a time when the world had just emerged from the Missile Crisis of October 1962, freeing humanity, by a hair, from the nuclear holocaust.
In 1963, North American imperialism faced a fall in its hegemony at the world level as a result of the advances of the USSR and the socialist camp, and the struggles for the liberation of the colonial peoples, especially accelerated by the triumph of the Cuban revolution. In those days, the hegemony of the United States was seriously compromised and in evident decline, an example of which was the assassination of President Kennedy himself, just five months later.
The historical lesson that can be drawn from that maneuver is that when the empire feels in decline, defeated and on the verge of losing its world domination, it always appeals to histrionic outings like this one. And it is what we must think about to evaluate the meaning and scope of the intentional and interfering provocation to the People’s Republic of China, with that camouflaged visit.
It was not a victory, much less a challenge, but the result of an agreement between the president and foreign ministers of both countries, after holding long telephone conversations, in the previous days. President Biden and Blinken, Secretary of State, were the protagonists of such conversations and they know it very well, even if they keep quiet about the truth, in clear violation of agreements between the United States and China.
It was not a show of force, nor are the Chinese a people who allow themselves to be intimidated by any foreign force.
Taiwan is Chinese territory. Its “independence” is the product of the protection of the Seventh Fleet, since 1948. Without the support of the usual interfering, it would never have been able to hold its own against the advance of the RPCH army, nor usurp the corresponding seat in the UN for a long time. , nor manage to establish diplomatic relations and recognition by countries that today, in the face of palpable geopolitical realities, are breaking relations with it and establishing them with China, today with 181 countries, under the principle of one China, as has been the recent case, only in our region, from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Antigua and Barbudas, among others.
The Chinese leadership is too wise, level-headed and serene to fall into provocations worthy of a comedy. He did the right thing by fending off a military response that, as in October 1962, would have plunged the world into the abyss of nuclear winter and caused its demise.
China has been able to respond in another immediate way, but its diplomatic practice is one of peace and its objective is the reunification of the Chinese. Whoever believes that the Chinese response did not take place knows nothing about the strategic mentality of that people. And it won’t be limited to live-fire military exercises conducted by your fleet; nor to the unanswered incursions of 26 planes into the airspace that he claims. The response will be devastating, at the right moment, as long as the circumstances demand it. Meanwhile, China continues to believe in a peaceful reunification through diplomatic and political means. And the nations that to this day maintain diplomatic relations with this sister Asian country reaffirm the principle of one China.
