Photo taken on February 28, 2022 shows the US Capitol building, seen through a barrier fence, in Washington, DC, the United States. PHOTO XINHUA United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan exposed that Washington hopes to foster Taiwan's independence by slicing the salami.
Her visit shows the lack of political wisdom in the US political circle - which is not restricted to the handling of the most sensitive issue in Sino-US relations.
Myriad problems are attributed to Washington's paucity of common sense in favor of truth-defying conviction.
The generation of statesmen who experienced World War II and laid the foundation for the postwar order, who displayed political wisdom through courage, vision and responsibility, has had no inheritors in the contemporary political circle in Washington.
The key perspective to observe Pelosi's visit to the Chinese island is not to analyze all its consequences, both immediate and potential, but rather to look at the root cause that led to her trip. If unaddressed, the US political system will continue to scourge the world with its spillover effects, which deserve more attention than those of inflation.
Although US politicians have become more self-assertive, with Pelosi as a case in point, they are all busy scrambling for personal interests, feathering their own nests by abusing their positions, and justifying the costs inflicted in doing so as the price that needs to be paid for an apple-pie world.
The self-interest of US politicians is becoming increasingly divergent with those of their own supporters, although the former have more channels and space to hijack the opinions of the latter. There is no bipartisan agreement in Congress, just short-lived personal interest alliances.
The cold shoulders Pelosi has met with in the Republic of Korea and Japan, and the reserved receptions she received in Singapore and Malaysia, speaks volumes of her hosts' shared awareness of the differences between her and the Joe Biden administration, and their reluctance to be involved in the political entanglements of Washington.
Pelosi's visit to Taiwan hasn't served the US national interests. The rise of populism in its elite political circle will continue, and the US will continue to pay for it. The showboating of Pelosi has helped to break up many tacit political understandings across the Taiwan Straits and in Sino-US relations that have helped to maintain the stability of the region and the ties.
It has highlighted the moral high ground of Beijing, and Beijing will take the initiative to transform its agenda into a new normal for the Straits, and Beijing will take the initiative to take the opportunity of this watershed event.
China is not interested in confrontation with the US, a country that it thinks it can co-exist with, if not outcompete by doing its own things, given the US' incurable political ailments.
The hubris of the House speaker who believes she has singlehandedly forced it to curve its redline has given Beijing an opportunity to advance the resolution of the Taiwan question in its intended direction.
Beijing will not waste the opportunity.