China Tuesday said it’s fully prepared to respond with “strong measures” if the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sticks to her plan to visit Taiwan.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said during a regular press briefing that the visit will amount to “gross interference in China’s internal affairs, seriously undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, wantonly trample on the One China principle, greatly threaten peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, severely undermine China-US relations and lead to a very serious situation and grave consequences.”
It is a matter of grave concern that despite a steadfast peace and reconciliation posture adopted by China, the United States repeatedly engages in provocative acts that imperil not just bilateral relations between the two big powers but also negatively affect the global economy.
The world is already witnessing an economic turmoil in most of the countries due to ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and in the aftermath of Covid-19 and cannot afford deterioration of the situation further with the opening of another controversy.
Pelosi’s possible trip, billed as a show of support for Taipei, has already flared up tension between the world’s two largest economic powers with China’s President Xi Jinping issuing a stern warning in a phone call with Joe Biden last week, telling his US counterpart that “those who play with fire will perish by it.”
Though Washington upholds the “one-China policy” and does not formally recognize the Taipei government, it has maintained a friendship with Taiwan anyway, even shipping it arms, to the great chagrin of Beijing, which has accused the US of meddling in China’s internal affairs and violating its sovereignty.
The dangers inherent in the new provocative posture of the US is evi-dent from the remarks made by the Chinese spokesperson who threatened that the People’s Liberation Army will never sit idly by, and will make resolute response and take strong countermeasures to uphold China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
We hope the US will respect the sentiments of 1.4 bil-lion Chinese who believe in peaceful co-existence but are fully determined to uphold their national security and sovereignty.
