Last Updated: February 23, 2024, 02:00 IST
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China responded sternly Thursday to a U.S. congressional delegation’s go to to Taiwan, demanding the U.S. cease any official contact with the selfgoverning island.
WASHINGTON: China responded sternly Thursday to a U.S. congressional delegation’s go to to Taiwan, demanding the U.S. cease any official contact with the self-governing island.
“China opposes any form of official interaction between the U.S. and Taiwan authorities and rejects U.S. interference in Taiwan affairs in whatever form or under whatever pretext,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stated. She urged Washington to be “mindful of the extreme complexity and sensitivity” of the Taiwan concern.
Mao spoke shortly after leaders of the House Select Committee on China’s Communist Party met with Taiwanese leaders on a high-profile journey geared toward exhibiting U.S. assist for the island’s democratically elected authorities.
The congressional go to drew a stronger-than-usual response. Beijing has lengthy protested any official interplay the U.S. and Taiwan however is especially dissatisfied with the House choose committee, which was fashioned in 2023 and is understood for its hawkish views of China’s ruling occasion.
However, the go to is unlikely to set off main navy actions as then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s go to did in the summertime of 2022. Beijing and Washington are in search of to stabilize their rocky relations following a November assembly between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The congressional go to coincided with an announcement by the U.S. State Department of a $75 million arms sale to Taiwan. The sale is comparatively minor in dimension and doesn’t embody weaponry. Instead, it covers communications and world positioning techniques in addition to associated know-how.
Mao criticized the sale as “undermining China’s sovereignty and security interests and harming China-U.S. relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
The U.S. is obligated beneath a 1979 regulation to offer Taiwan with adequate navy {hardware} and know-how to discourage invasion, and its arm gross sales to Taiwan have at all times drawn robust opposition from Beijing, which considers the island as a part of Chinese territory and vows to take it, by power if mandatory.
Taiwan can be a part of the $95 billion support bundle that handed the Senate this month however has stalled within the House. That bundle, which centered on Ukraine and Israel, included $1.9 billion to replenish U.S. weapons offered to Taiwan. An extra $3.3 billion would go to construct extra U.S.-made submarines in assist of a safety partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom.
In Taiwan, Rep. Mike Gallagher, the choose committee’s Republican chair, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, its Democratic rating member, advised methods to hurry up the supply of navy weapons to Taiwan, together with joint manufacturing of some weapons that don’t want mental property switch, in accordance with a report by Central News Agency, the island’s predominant wire service.
The delegation met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and likewise President-elect Lai Ching-te. Lai, who received a three-way race in January and can take workplace in May.
“Today, we’ve come as Democrats and Republicans to show our bipartisan support for this partnership, which, thanks to your leadership, I think is stronger and more rock solid than ever,” Gallagher stated throughout the assembly with Tsai.
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AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report
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