U.S. should take full responsibility for escalating tensions across Taiwan Strait: Chinese spokesperson

The world knows clearly that U.S. provocation has led to escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and the United States should take full responsibility, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Tuesday. 

Hua's comment came after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. Congress is an independent, coequal branch of government, and that House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi would make her own decisions about whether to visit Taiwan. "And so, if the speaker does decide to visit and China tries to create some kind of crisis or otherwise escalate tensions, that would be entirely on Beijing," Blinken has said.

"Blinken's remarks called black white, once again demonstrating the hegemonic mentality and gangster logic of some people in the United States that 'I can provoke you at will, but you can't oppose it or defend yourself,'" Hua said at a regular news briefing.

Hua said that the U.S. Congress, as a part of the U.S. government, should strictly follow the foreign policies recognized and committed to by the U.S. government.

"The U.S. House speaker is the third highest-ranking official in the U.S. government. It is by no means an unofficial act for the House speaker to visit Taiwan taking a U.S. military aircraft," Hua said.

The wrong actions of some U.S. politicians in the past should not constitute a precedent, still less can they become an excuse for the U.S. side to repeat its mistakes on the Taiwan question, Hua said.

She said the one-China principle is a widely recognized basic norm for international relations and a universal consensus of the international community. "It is on the basis of the one-China principle that China has established diplomatic ties with 181 countries, including the United States."

However, in recent years the U.S. side has only claimed to follow the one-China policy in words, but has continued to go backward in terms of actions, Hua said, citing the heightened level of contact with Taiwan and the increased arms sales to the region.

Many people, including mainstream U.S. media and think tanks, as well as former political dignitaries of U.S. allies, have commented publicly that Pelosi's visit to Taiwan under any pretext would be foolish, dangerous and unnecessary and that it is perilous gambling, said Hua.

"It is hard to imagine a more reckless and provocative action than this," she said. "If the U.S. side miscalculates or mishandles the cross-Strait situation, it will bring catastrophic consequences to the security, prosperity and order of the Taiwan region and the world at large."

Considering the wanton U.S. actions in disregard of China's repeated solemn representations, it will be justified and necessary for China to take any countermeasure, she said.

The position of the Chinese government and Chinese people on the Taiwan question is consistent, and it is the firm will of more than 1.4 billion Chinese people to resolutely safeguard China's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, Hua said.