(TibetanReview.net, Jul28’22) – Both the White House and US State Department have said as of Jul 26 that a trip to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to be confirmed. But China has been issuing dire threats of what it will do, should a visit actually take place. It sees any such visit as a breach of its “One China” stand, which postulates that Taiwan is part of China.
China’s military will take “forceful measures” to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity if anyone wants to breach China’s bottom line on the Taiwan question, China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Jul 28 cited the country’s top envoy in Washington as saying Jul 26.
The occasion was a reception marking the 95th anniversary of the founding of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, which was established on Aug 1, 1927. The gathering was attended by about 300 guests, including representatives of the US military, the State Department, embassies in the US, military attaches and overseas Chinese, the report said.
Ambassador Qin Gang has emphasized that the Taiwan question remains the most important and sensitive core issue in China-US relations.
“If anyone tries to separate Taiwan from China, if anyone wants to challenge China’s bottom line, the Chinese military will take forceful measures to firmly safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he has said at the reception.
Qin has also said the Chinese government valued peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, and had been making the “utmost efforts” for peaceful reunification, but that “Taiwan independence” separatist forces and their activities posed the biggest threat to cross-Straits peace and stability.
Peace across the Taiwan Strait also remains the byword of US policy, but China has been escalating the tempo if its threats of military invasion of the de facto independent island country with the latter’s continued rule by the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party.