BEIJING, July 15 Other countries should not underestimate China's resolve protect their sovereignty, they should not be under the illusion that someone could cross the line on the Taiwan issue and not pay for it, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a briefing on Monday.
China on July 12 imposed sanctions against six US military-industrial enterprises, in particular Anduril Industries, Maritime Tactical Systems, Pacific Rim Defense, AEVEX Aerospace, LKD Aerospace, Summit Technologies Inc, and five top managers of some of these companies because for arms sales to Taiwan.
«The US sale of arms to Taiwan seriously violates the 'one China' principle and the provisions of the three joint Sino-US communiqués, especially Communiqué 817, is a gross interference in China's internal affairs and seriously damages the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the PRC,» Lin Jian said, commenting on the introduced sanctions last week.
He noted that the Taiwan issue is the most important of the fundamental interests of the PRC and the first “red line” in Sino-American relations that cannot be crossed.
«No state, organization or individual should underestimate the strong determination, unwavering will and enormous capabilities of the government and people of the People's Republic of China to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and no one should be under the illusion that they will cross the line on the Taiwan issue and they won’t pay for it,” the diplomat added.
Earlier in June this year, China imposed sanctions against the American arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin and a number of company managers over arms sales to Taiwan.
The situation around Taiwan worsened significantly after Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited the island in early August 2022. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned Pelosi's visit as US support for Taiwanese separatism and held large-scale military exercises.
Official relations between the central government of China and its island province were interrupted in 1949 after the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek, defeated in the civil war with the Communist Party of China, moved to Taiwan. Business and informal contacts between the island and mainland China resumed in the late 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the parties began to contact through non-governmental organizations — the Beijing Association for the Development of Relations across the Taiwan Strait and the Taipei Cross-Strait Exchange Foundation.