Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

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In the Ukraine crisis, the temperature is rising. Some US politicians may feel that is not enough. They started to collude with Taiwan secessionist authorities to hype up a momentum - exploiting the Ukraine issue to stir up troubles on the Taiwan question, in order to embolden the forces that support secessionism on the island and complicate the situation across the Taiwan Straits so they can fish in troubled waters.  

After Global Times commented on Taiwan regional leader Tsai Ing-wen's eagerness to grab attention from the Ukraine issue, saying "its sovereignty has never existed," and it's only a matter of time that its secessionist regime will be "eradicated," some American politicians scrambled to refute. 

Todd Young, a US senator for Indiana, said on Twitter on Thursday, "China… clearly has the same ambitions for Taiwan. It is essential for us to send a strong message..." On the same day, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley tweeted, "#China wants to gobble up Taiwan and then project its power worldwide… And Biden isn't ready." 

Young and Hawley are two typical US politicians who seek political gains by attacking China while lacking righteous views on US national interests. When it comes to Taiwan-related affairs, they don't make judgments based on facts but on their paranoid mentality, shaped by Taiwan's lobbying groups in the US. They have long been corrupted and captured by those forces from the Taiwan island. 

Be it the Ukraine crisis or tensions across the Taiwan Straits, the US has been the biggest hidden hand that fanned the flames. But now, American politicians find their country incapable of cleaning up the mess the US created. 

What happened in Ukraine shows us again that the US lacks capability to interfere in other regions as it hopes. 

The White House made it very clear on Wednesday that the US had no intention of sending military or troops to fight in Ukraine. This fully demonstrates that the US is threatening in rhetoric without matching actions. Not sending troops is the only correct choice at this point, because otherwise, it would lead to a direct collision between the two nuclear powers. The risk will be huge and uncontrollable. But every previous step the US has taken before that was wrong - starting the fire, sowing discord, and pushing Russia into a corner until Moscow strikes back, Qing Yun, an expert on China-US relations based in Shanghai, told Global Times.

Now, these American politicians know that the US has neither the confidence nor determination to have another showdown with another major power in the Taiwan Straits. 
Therefore, as core US forces that support Taiwan secession, Young and Hawley and their likes clamor and urge Washington to act tougher so they can hide the embarrassment brought by US' declining strength. All they need to do is talk loud anyway, without the need to make policies or shoulder the responsible for failed policies. 

Republicans apparently wish to throw mud at their political opponents. They have suggested it is the Biden administration, not the US, should feel embarrassed. For them, grabbing any opportunity to find fault with their political rival outweighs national interests, according to Qing.

If US politicians are rational enough, they should make the assessment: Ukraine's situation is a lesson for Taiwan island, and the latter is the core interest of the Chinese mainland. China will not be soft on defending its core interests.

Unfortunately, the American political elites did not draw any lesson from the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its failure in Iraq. And they are turning a blind eye to the new lesson they could learn from the Ukraine crisis, Li Haidong, a professor from the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, told Global Times. 
 
It is tragic. Their vision has never fallen on the ways to improve the US economy, resolve US domestic puzzles, better the US international image, or control the epidemic. On the contrary, they continue to hype external "enemies" on the other side of the globe. When politicians like Young and Hawley keep making noise on China-related affairs, "they are leading the US toward self-destruction,"  Li said. 

The author is a reporter with Global Times. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn