“WE WILL CRUSH TAIWANESE SEPARATISTS BY ALL MEANS”: CHINA

Mon 15 August 2022:

In response to a US Congress delegation’s visit to the island on Monday, Chinese Defense Ministry Spokesman Wu Qian said that China’s army will put an end to outside forces’ plans to interfere in China’s domestic political affairs and will also foil separatists’ attempts to break away from Taiwan.

“The People’s Liberation Army of China will continue to conduct drills to prepare for combat operations, we will resolutely defend our country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the spokesman said in a distributed statement, adding “We will crush Taiwanese separatists by all means and foil all foreign forces’ attempts to interfere,” TASS reported.

A US Congress delegation led by Senator Ed Markey (a member of Democratic party, Massachusetts) arrived on Sunday evening for a two-day visit to Taiwan. According to the island’s Foreign Ministry, the delegation included five politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties.

At their Monday meeting, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen thanked the delegation for visiting at a “key moment” and for demonstrating their support for Taiwan with action.

Tsai said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the threat to the world order by authoritarian regimes, and that China’s recent military drills around the island have “severely disrupted” regional peace and stability.

“Taiwan not only worked closely with our international friends, keeping close tabs on all military movements around us, but also kept conveying to the world our resolve to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan strait,” the president said.

Tsai added that Taiwan wishes to “further deepen our cooperation with the US and jointly maintain prosperity and stability in the Indo Pacific region. In the face of global authoritarian expansionism, Taiwan also wishes to deepen trade relations with like-minded democracies, and create a more resilient supply chain.”

The Chinese government has repeatedly stated that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taipei on August 2 and 3 was a provocation that should be seen as “the wrong signal to Taiwan separatists”.

A day after that visit, Beijing authorities imposed sanctions on the House Speaker and her family, and froze several bilateral intergovernmental mechanisms for interaction with Washington.

Taiwan has been governed by its own administration since 1949, when the remnants of the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled there after their defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Since then it retains the flag and some other attributes of the former Republic of China, which existed on the mainland before the Communists came to power.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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