White House summoned Chinese ambassador to condemn provocations after Pelosi's Taiwan visit
The White House summoned
China's ambassador on Thursday to condemn China's "irresponsible"
military activities near Taiwan as tensions continue to escalate in the region
following US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island this week.
"After China's actions overnight, we summoned PRC Ambassador Qin Gang to the White House to demarche him about the PRC's provocative actions," National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said in a statement to CNN.
"We
condemned the PRC's military actions, which are irresponsible, at odds with our
long-standing goal of maintaining peace and stability and across the Taiwan Strait."
The decision to summon Qin came after days of warnings to China not to
escalate tensions in the region following the speaker's visit to the self-governing
island, which the Chinese Communist Party regards as its territory despite
having never controlled it.
It represents a shift from the White House's attitude about the trip
before it occurred, when officials privately tried to warn Pelosi over the
possible consequences of the visit and how it could harm US-China relations.
In the days since Pelosi left Taiwan, China has taken multiple bellicose
steps, both diplomatically and militarily.
On the diplomatic front, Beijing is sanctioning Pelosi and her immediate
family and said Friday it would suspend cooperation with Washington on several
issues, including combating the climate crisis.
The pause in climate talks between the US and China is symbolically
significant for the two nations' bilateral relationship because the climate
crisis was one of the few areas the US and China had continued to cooperate on
in recent years, even during times of heightened geopolitical tensions.
The US and China announced in Glasgow last year a bilateral agreement to
cooperate on the climate crisis, widely seen as a progressive step that would
allow China to work on key issues -- like reducing methane emissions -- without
having to join global agreements that it had shown resistance to. The nations'
climate representatives had been in regular communication to build on that
agreement.
Taiwan's defense ministry said Chinese warships and aircraft conducted
drills in waters around the island and that Chinese forces crossed the median
line -- the halfway point between the island and mainland China -- in a move
the ministry called a "highly provocative act."
Two Chinese drones also flew close to Japan on Thursday, prompting the
country's Air Self-Defense Force to scramble fighter jets in response,
according to a statement from Tokyo's Ministry of Defense.
Kirby said the White House told Qin the US does not want a crisis in the
region and reiterated there has been no change to the US' "One China"
policy and that Washington recognizes the People's Republic of China as the
sole legitimate government of China.
"We also made clear that the United States is prepared for what
Beijing chooses to do. We will not seek and do not want a crisis. At the same
time, we will not be deterred from operating in the seas and skies of the
Western Pacific, consistent with international law, as we have for decades --
supporting Taiwan and defending a free and open Indo-Pacific," Kirby said
in the statement.
NSC Coordinator for Indo Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell met with Qin,
according to a source familiar with the matter.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday that the US has
repeatedly conveyed to China that "we do not seek and will not provoke a
crisis." He called China's recent actions "provocative" and
"a significant escalation."
The speaker's visit, he said, was "peaceful" and "there is
no justification for this extreme, disproportionate and escalatory military
response."
Pelosi, a California Democrat, said the visit -- the first time a US House
speaker had visited Taiwan in 25 years -- was intended to make it
"unequivocally clear" that the United States would "not
abandon" Taipei.
It came at a low point in US-China relations and despite warnings from the
Biden administration against a visit to the democratically governed island.
The US maintains close unofficial ties with Taiwan, and is bound by law to
provide Taiwan with defensive arms. But it remains deliberately vague on
whether it would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, a policy
known as "strategic ambiguity."
The US postponed a long planned missile test because of China's angry
reaction to Pelosi's trip.
A US official told CNN that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed the Department of Defense to postpone the test flight of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile after China launched military exercises.
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