The Taiwanese government’s attempts to achieve independence with US help and weapons will create a military danger in the Taiwan Strait region, Zhu Fenglian, spokeswoman for the Chinese State Council Office for Taiwan Affairs said.
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Earlier, the US State Department approved the possible sale of communications equipment to Taiwan worth $75 million.
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“We strongly oppose US arms sales to the Taiwan region, this position is consistent and clear,” Zhu Fenglian said at a press conference.
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She noted that China calls on the United States to abide by the “one China” principle and the provisions of the three joint Sino-American communiqués, and to stop selling arms to Taiwan.
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“Attempts by the government of the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan to achieve independence by relying on the United States and through arms can only lead to military danger in the Taiwan Strait region and put Taiwanese compatriots in a dangerous situation,” she stressed.
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The situation around Taiwan deteriorated significantly after the visit of then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to the island in early August 2022. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi’s visit, seeing in this step US support for Taiwanese separatism, and held large-scale military exercises.
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Official relations between the central government of China and its island province were interrupted in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in the civil war with the Chinese Communist Party, 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.
