Who has to pay the price for the cross-Straits crisis, which has been brought about by the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's ill-intended visit to China's Taiwan island last week? Who will suffer from the worsening cross-Straits relations?

It is Taiwan residents that have fallen victim to the dirty intrigue contrived by secessionists on the island and those in the United States who are playing the Taiwan card against China.

The Chinese mainland is the island's biggest export market. Taiwan's trade surplus with the mainland last year was as high as $171.6 billion, up $31.1 billion from the figure in 2020.

The last thing the mainland wants to do is take punitive actions against Taiwan as it does not want Chinese compatriots on the island to suffer from the fallout of worsening cross-Straits relations because of what the secessionists on the island have done.

Since Tsai Ing-wen became the leader of the island's authorities in 2016, she and her Democratic Progressive Party have refused to accept the 1992 Consensus, which was the anchor for stable cross-Straits relations. Tsai has also been trying to de-sinicize the island and has sought "jurisprudential independence" for it with a series of provocative moves along with some foreign countries. It is she and the DPP that have undermined cross-Straits relations at the expense of the interests of residents on the island.

The Chinese government cannot allow the secessionists on the island to go increasingly farther on the path of seeking the island's secession from the motherland without taking punitive actions.

Anyone looking at the situation objectively can recognize that the healthy development of relations across the Straits bodes well for the future of the island. The win-win economic cooperation and trade across the Straits in the past several decades have verified this fact.

Nevertheless, Tsai and the secessionists of the DPP have essentially kidnapped Taiwan residents with their political stunts. They should know that their attempts to seek the secession of the island from the motherland are nothing more than a pipe dream. But they seem to believe that in disregarding the well-being of residents on the island and acting in accordance with Washington's designs they can earn credit for themselves.

Selfish and treacherous, they are sacrificing the interests of Taiwan residents to feather their own nests. The military drills of the People's Liberation Army around the island should serve as a warning to Taiwan secessionists that they will not be allowed to indulge themselves in this way forever.