August 23, 2022
BEIJING – Beijing has strongly pushed back on Washington’s attempt to shift the responsibility for escalating tensions across the Taiwan Straits following United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s provocative visit to the Taiwan region, saying that Pelosi and the US government are “being extremely irresponsible” by slinging mud at China.
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson gave the remarks in a statement issued on Monday in response to the latest claims made by US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns on Friday in an interview with CNN.
The US envoy said that China overreacted to Pelosi’s visit and has become “an agent of instability” across the Taiwan Straits, describing China’s justified response as “a manufactured crisis”.
“The remarks of Burns confound right with wrong and once again show the US’ distorted and hegemonic logic,” the spokesperson said.
Before the controversial trip to Taiwan by Pelosi, China, at various levels from the Foreign Ministry to the Ministry of National Defense, had repeatedly warned the US of the serious harm that could be caused by such a trip and made it clear that Washington must be entirely responsible for all possible consequences.
Right after Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan, Vice-Foreign Minister Xie Feng had urgently summoned Burns to protest to the US on behalf of the Chinese government.
Xie said the US must pay the price for insisting on following through on its wrong decision. He also urged the US to immediately redress the mistake by taking concrete actions to undo the egregious impact of Pelosi’s visit.
However, instead of reflecting on its wrongdoing and changing course, the US has sought to deflect the blame on China, with several senior US officials making public statements one after another and mischaracterizing the course of events, the spokesperson said.
On the eve of Aug 8, Xie once again summoned Burns over Washington’s reckless remarks on China’s countermeasures against Pelosi’s provocative visit. Xie made it clear that it is the US, rather than China, that started the crisis, changed the status quo across the Taiwan Straits and flexed its muscles across the world, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
The spokesperson stressed in the statement that it is the US that made provocations, imposed an avoidable crisis on the Chinese people, and yet falsely accused China of starting the crisis.
It is the US that blatantly infringed on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and trampled on China’s red line, yet it falsely accused China of overreacting and manufacturing the crisis, the spokesperson said, adding that what the US has done has completely gone over the line.