China has warned the United States it's going to take "counter-measures" after the Biden administration authorized greater than $1.62 billion in arms gross sales to Taiwan.
Chinese language embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu stated on Saturday China was "firmly opposed" to the gross sales, which "severely jeopardise China-US relations and peace and stability throughout the Taiwan Strait," and referred to as on Washington to "instantly revoke" them.
Liu's feedback on Twitter got here after the Biden administration on Friday formally notified Congress of the proposed gross sales, which embrace as much as 60 anti-ship missiles and as much as 100 air-to-air missiles.
The US State Division stated the gross sales are in keeping with a longstanding coverage of offering defensive weapons to the island and described the "swift provision" of such arms as being "important for Taiwan's safety".
China, nonetheless, has accused the US of interfering in what it sees as its inside affairs.
China's Communist Social gathering claims Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, as a part of its territory regardless of by no means having ruled it and has lengthy vowed to "reunify" the island with the Chinese language mainland, by power if essential.
"The US interferes in China's inside affairs and undermines China's sovereignty and safety pursuits by promoting arms to Taiwan," Liu tweeted.
China accuses the US of 'navigation bullying'
"It sends the unsuitable indicators to 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces and severely jeopardises China-US relations and peace and stability throughout the Taiwan Strait," Liu stated.
He referred to as on the US to "honour its commitments to the one-China precept" and ended his sequence of tweets by saying Taiwan is "an inalienable a part of the Chinese language territory" and warned China will "resolutely take official and essential counter-measures".
China had warned Pelosi in opposition to making the journey, and responded by ordering days' value of navy drills across the island after she had left.
Taiwan stated Saturday it "extremely welcomes" the most recent arms gross sales and thanked the US authorities for "persevering with to implement its safety commitments to Taiwan".
"In response to China's latest steady navy provocations and unilateral adjustments in the established order and creating crises, Taiwan's dedication to defend itself is extraordinarily agency," Taiwan's Ministry of International Affairs stated in a press release on Saturday.
"This batch of arms gross sales consists of a lot of varied sorts of missiles which might be wanted to strengthen Taiwan's self-defence, which absolutely demonstrates that the nice significance the US authorities attaches to Taiwan's defence wants, aiding our nation to acquire the gear wanted for defence in a well timed method and to boost our nationwide defence capabilities."
In an incident that underscored the heightened tensions, Taiwan's navy shot down a drone hovering over one among its island outposts simply off the Chinese language coast on Thursday.
A day earlier, Taiwan stated it had warned off drones hovering over three of the islands it occupies off the coast of the Chinese language port metropolis of Xiamen.