China and the US could end up in a military conflict if the US encourages Taiwanese independence, Chinese Ambassador to Washington Qin Gang (秦剛) said in a US radio interview broadcast on Friday.
“Let me emphasize this. The Taiwan issue is the biggest tinderbox between China and the United States,” Qin told National Public Radio.
“If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely [will] involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
Asked to comment, the US Department of Defense said the US remained committed to its “one China” policy and its commitments under the US Taiwan Relations Act.
Under the long-standing policy, Washington officially recognizes Beijing rather than Taipei, while the act requires the US to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.
“We will continue to assist Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability, while also maintaining our own capacity to resist any use of force that would jeopardize the security of the people of Taiwan,” a Pentagon spokesperson said.
The US Department of State and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Qin’s remark, which came just hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) discussed the crisis over Ukraine.
While Chinese officials have warned of military action over Taiwan, it is unusual for them to link it directly to the US.
Tensions between Taipei and Beijing have escalated in the past few months as China’s military has conducted repeated air missions over the Taiwan Strait.
US President Joe Biden has said that the US was not encouraging independence for Taiwan, but he caused a stir in October last year, when he said it would come to the nation’s defense if China attacked.
The latter remark appeared to depart from Washington’s long-held policy of “strategic ambiguity” — not making clear how the US would respond — although the White House quickly said Biden was not signaling a change in policy.
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