China is well positioned to resist pro-Taiwan independence provocations and external interference, Chen Binhua, spokesman for the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Thursday.
⠀
Earlier, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Beijing decided to impose sanctions against nine US companies for selling arms to Taiwan, including Sierra Nevada Corporation, Stick Rudder Enterprises LLC, Cubic Corporation, S3 AeroDefense, TCOM, TextOre, Planate Management Group, ACT1 Federal, Exovera. The sanctions measures came into force on September 18, 2024.
⠀
“We urge the United States to immediately stop arming Taiwan, immediately stop sending false signals to pro-Taiwan separatist forces, and take concrete actions to fulfill its commitment not to support Taiwan’s independence,” Chen Binhua said, as quoted by China Central Television.
⠀
He noted that “Taiwan independence is incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait, it is the biggest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and the main source of chaos for peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.”
⠀
“We have the unshakable will, full confidence and sufficient capabilities to resist provocations in support of Taiwan independence and external interference,” he added.
⠀
The situation around Taiwan worsened significantly after Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited the island in early August 2022. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit as US support for Taiwanese separatism and held large-scale military exercises.
⠀
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 the 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.
