Die-hard secessionist Lai brings Taiwan trouble: Editorial flash

The chief of the secessionist-minded Democratic Progressive Party on China's Taiwan island Lai Ching-te and his ilk, who trumpet "Taiwan independence", have again proven themselves to be nothing but troublemakers.

Lai, who is also deputy leader of the DPP authorities on the island, lived up to that billing with the speech he delivered to supporters during his stopover in the United States on Thursday on his way back to Taiwan after visiting Paraguay.

His speech to supporters in San Francisco, which was broadcast live on the island, was essentially a campaign speech both for the island's forthcoming leadership election, appealing for the support of the die-hard secessionists on the island, and for US backing for their and his cause should he win.

Showing he is a "pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence", he fed his audience in the US and on island the sweet talk they were greedy to hear.

"We have one shared goal," he declared, "which is to make Taiwan the MVP of the democratic world." Inadvertently, he got to the nub of his agenda by employing the acronym for US sporting term "most valuable player".

The DPP secessionists are indeed deemed to be the most valuable player in the China-suppressing "Indo-Pacific" strategy of the Joe Biden administration and the China hawks in the US Congress.

Despite Beijing's objections, the Biden administration allowed Lai's stopovers because they serve to smear Beijing, while at the same time giving a whitewash to the administration's so-called value diplomacy, which aims to claim the moral high ground for the US, obscuring its low-down and dirty power plays.

Lai showed he knows how to follow the administration's script.

To give more credence to this ploy, Lai did not meet with any senior US politician during his stopovers in San Francisco and in New York on the outward leg of his journey.

Instead, Thursday's banquet with supporters was attended by Laura Rosenberger, chair of the American Institute in Taiwan, the US government-run body that handles unofficial relations with Taipei.

She disingenuously said that preserving peace and stability is a core tenant of the US' longstanding cross-Strait policy.

Nonetheless, the collusion of the DPP and Washington is threatening to shatter that peace. All in the DPP and most, if not all, in Washington, know full well that there is only one China, of which the island is an integral part and of which Beijing is the sole legitimate representative.

Despite the island not being, and never having been an independent country, they seek to make out it is.

Lai — who in a bid for unconditional Biden administration backing, highlighted in his speech on Thursday the island's key role in the global semiconductor supply chain and claimed he would turn Taiwan into Asia's Silicon Valley — entitled his speech "Building an innovative and prosperous country."

If Lai is truly willing to steer his course by the beacon of peace, he should be talking with Beijing to expedite the island's reunification with the motherland, not pandering to Washington's anti-China games.

But to do that, he will need to change his course, as the central government is willing to defend the true interests of Taiwan residents, but it will not talk with secessionists.