News / China

China censures US for changing Taiwan wording

Tuesday, 10 May 2022 3:21 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 10 May 2022 3:22 PM ]

The file photo shows Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian addressing a regular press conference in Beijing.

China's Foreign Ministry has strongly denounced the United States for changing the wording about Chinese Taipei, saying desperate attempts for "political manipulation" will not succeed in changing the status quo of the sensitive Taiwan Strait.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said during a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday that the People's Republic of China had been the sole legal government representing the whole country.

The United States' changing of its fact sheet on Taipei-US ties is "a petty act of fictionalizing and hollowing out the one-China principle," he added.

"This kind of political manipulation on the Taiwan question is an attempt to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and will inevitably stir up a fire that only burns" the United States, Zhao said.

The US State Department website's section on Taiwan recently removed wording on acknowledging Beijing's position that Taiwan is part of China. The wording change appears to have happened on May 5.

The State Department also referred to six Reagan-era security assurances given to Taiwan, which the US declassified in 2020. Among the assurances made in 1982 are statements that the US has not set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, nor agreed to prior consultation with Beijing on such sales, or to revise the Taiwan Relations Act that underpins US policy towards the island.

Chinese troops attend the opening ceremony of the ‘Peace Mission 2021’ joint counterterrorism military exercise on September 20, 2021.

China has repeatedly warned the US against formalizing ties with the self-ruled island, and also maintained that the sale of American weapons to it violates China's sovereignty.

The US, which is engaged in a war against China, has been pushing Taiwan to modernize its military to help it become hard for China to attack.

Chinese Taipei falls under China's sovereignty, and under the "One China" policy, almost all governments across the globe — the US included — recognize that sovereignty.

But, in violation of its own stated policy and in an attempt to irritate Beijing, Washington has recently ramped up diplomatic contact with the self-proclaimed government in Chinese Taipei. Washington is also the island's largest weapon supplier.

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