Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Tan Kefei at a briefing on Tuesday called Washington’s military aid to Taiwan a flagrant interference in China’s internal affairs.
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Earlier, US President Joe Biden ordered $345 million in defense aid to Taiwan.
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“The United States, by providing military assistance to Taiwan, is grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs, causing serious damage to its sovereignty and security interests, endangering peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. We categorically oppose this and have already made a serious presentation to the United States,” Tan Kefei said.
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He pointed out that the Taiwan issue affects China’s fundamental interests and is a red line in China-US relations that should not be crossed.
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“We urge the United States to stop all forms of military interaction with Taiwan, and to go further down the dangerous and misguided path,” he said, adding that the Chinese army is closely monitoring the situation in Taiwan and maintains a high degree of combat readiness.
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The situation around Taiwan escalated significantly after a visit to the island in early August 2022 by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing in this move US support for Taiwanese separatism, and held large-scale military exercises.
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Official relations between the central government of the PRC and its island province were interrupted in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in a civil war with the Communist Party of China, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to contact through non-governmental organizations – the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.
