U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns’ recent remarks about Taiwan region “called white black” and again “exposed Washington’s hegemonic logic,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Monday in response to comments made by Burns in a CNN interview.
Burns told CNN on August 19 that China’s response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit was an “overreaction.”
China has lodged stern representations to the U.S. side multiple times over Pelosi’s visit to the Taiwan region, and has clearly indicated that all consequences should be borne by the U.S. side, the spokesperson said in the statement.
“It would be unfair to say that the U.S. had not been warned about the consequences if the visit took place,” the spokesperson added.
Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Xie Feng had summoned Ambassador Burns twice to make serious démarche and strong protest to the U.S. side on behalf of the Chinese government and urged the U.S. to immediately redress the mistake by taking concrete actions to undo the egregious impact of Pelosi’s visit, the spokesperson noted.
“The Chinese side pointed to the plain fact that it is the U.S. that made provocations first, imposed an avoidable crisis on the Chinese people, and yet falsely accused China of starting the crisis; it is the U.S. that has applied the salami-slicing tactics to repeatedly cross the red line and undermine the one-China principle and the status quo across the Taiwan Straits, and yet falsely accused China of changing the status quo,” the spokesperson stressed.
“It is the U.S. that has been conducting gunboat diplomacy at China’s doorstep, and yet sought to stigmatize and demonize China’s legitimate, lawful, professional and transparent military drills; it is the U.S. that has been undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits, and yet it tries to shift the blame for making provocations and escalating tensions onto China; it is the U.S. that blatantly infringed on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and trampled on China’s red line, yet it falsely accused China of overreacting and manufacturing the crisis. What the U.S. has done has completely gone over the line. It is not China that is being irresponsible. It is Pelosi and the U.S. government that are being extremely irresponsible,” the statement read.
The spokesperson reiterated that the one-China principle is at the heart of China’s core interests. “No country, force or individual shall ever underestimate the firm resolve, staunch will and strong capability of the Chinese Government and people to defend sovereignty and territorial integrity and to achieve national reunification and rejuvenation.”
China once again urges the U.S. side to abide by the basic norms of international relations including respecting other countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity and non-interference in others’ internal affairs, return to the right path of the one-China principle and the three Sino-U.S. joint communiqués and stop doing anything that undermines China’s core interests, the spokesperson noted.
