BEIJING (AP) – China’s state media attacked the latest move against Taiwan by the Trump administration, accusing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of “maliciously trying to inflict a lasting scar on China-US ties”.
An official from the official Xinhua News Agency also said in a comment on Sunday that lifting long-standing restrictions on US government contacts with his Taiwanese counterparts proves that Pompeo “is only interested in causing unjustified confrontations and has no interest in peace. worldwide “.
Another comment posted online by CGTN, the English channel for state television station CCTV, called Pompeo’s announcement “a cowardly act of sabotage” by the next United States government.
“The Trump administration, in its continued efforts to burn the house down before leaving office, crossed a dangerous red line with China days before new President Joe Biden took office,” the comment said in part.
Biden takes office on January 20.
There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government on Pompeo’s decision to end State Department restrictions on how American officials can interact with Taiwan, which he said was implemented to appease the Communist regime in Beijing.
“Enough,” Pompeo said in a statement on Saturday. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all these self-imposed restrictions.”
Taiwan is a sensitive issue for the Communist Party of China, which considers the autonomous island of 23.6 million to be a renegade province that should be submitted to its government.
Under the one-China policy, the United States recognizes Beijing as the government of China and has no diplomatic relations with Taiwan. However, it maintains unofficial contacts, including a de facto embassy in Taipei, the capital, and provides military equipment for the defense of the island.
Taiwan’s leaders welcomed Pompeo’s announcement.
“We are expressing our gratitude to the United States for speaking out and supporting Taiwan,” Prime Minister Su Tseng-chang told reporters. “We also hope to interact more actively with each other, so that Taiwan can have an even greater space in international society.”
He and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, who thanked Pompeo on Twitter, emphasized the values of freedom and democracy shared by Taiwan and the United States – a contrast to China’s authoritarian one-party state.
Pompeo’s announcement came two days after he said he would send Kelly Craft, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, to Taiwan for meetings this week. She should arrive on Wednesday.
Craft’s trip follows one by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar in August, the first Cabinet member to visit Taiwan since 2014, and another by Under Secretary of State Keith Krach in September.
China, which is opposed to Taiwan in having its own foreign relations, strongly criticizes all this interaction. She stepped up air patrols off Taiwan last year and used her diplomatic influence to prevent Taiwan from participating in international forums, such as the annual meeting of the World Health Organization.
Hu Xijin, editor of the Chinese state newspaper Global Times, tweeted that if Pompeo’s announcement is the new starting point for Taiwan’s American policy, it will also mark the start of the countdown to the Taiwanese government’s survival.
“Fighters (from China) can fly over the island of Taiwan at any time,” he tweeted. “The option of using military means to resolve (a) the Taiwan issue will also be put on the table.”
Pompeo said the United States maintains relations with unofficial partners worldwide and that Taiwan is no exception.
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Associated Press editor Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.