China warns of "dangerous consequences" for anyone who criticizes its Taiwan policy

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, known for his

has attacked this Friday against what it considers "absurd rhetoric", in reference to critics who have accused Beijing in recent times of posing a "challenge to the international order based on rules", "trying to unilaterally change the status quo of the

of Taiwan by force or coercion” and “undermining the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait”.

These comments "will lead to dangerous consequences," he warned in a harsh speech delivered in Shanghai at the opening of a forum dedicated to China's modernization and its relationship with the world.

"Whoever plays with fire on the Taiwan issue will get burned."

Beijing, which regards the self-governing and democratic island as an inalienable part of its territory and is ready to undertake reunification even by force, launched a three-day war exercise around Taiwan a couple of weeks ago in which it simulated the blockade and bombardment of the enclave.

The maneuvers were the response of the Chinese government to what it called a "provocation": the meeting of the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, with the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, during a stopover in the country. North American.

With relations between Washington and Beijing in free fall, the Taiwan issue has become a point of enormous friction between the two superpowers.

This Tuesday, the seven G7 foreign ministers dedicated a large part of their final statement to China after a three-day meeting in Japan: in it they demanded that Beijing refrain from "threats, coercion, intimidation or use of force" against Taiwan and show their opposition "to any unilateral attempt to change the

by force or coercion" in the East and South China Sea.

"We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an essential element for the security and prosperity of the international community," they add in the resolution.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also recently delivered a harsh speech about the Asian giant, just before her official trip to Beijing, where she went in early April in the company of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Von der Leyen accused China of "promoting an alternative vision of the world order."

Macron, on the other hand, slipped that the European Union should avoid being dragged into what he called tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Against this background, the Foreign Minister has deployed the entire argument of Beijing: “Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to a single China.

This is history and also the

”.

The question of Taiwan "is the core of China's core interests", he added, replicating the words of the country's president, Xi Jinping, to his US counterpart, Joe Biden, during the meeting in Bali (Indonesia) last November, in the margins of the G-20, in which they tried to straighten ties that are still frayed today.

"Taiwan is at the very center of China's core interests," Xi told Biden.

“It is the cornerstone of the political foundation of Sino-US relations and the first red line that must not be crossed in Sino-US relations.”

The American destroyer USS Milius, as it passed through the Taiwan Strait on April 16, after the military maneuvers of the Chinese army around the island.AP

Although the United States does not formally recognize the Government of Taiwan, nor does it support its independence, it maintains, like many other countries, unofficial and economic ties with the island.

It is its main international support, supplies the enclave with weapons for its defense and maintains a position of "strategic ambiguity" through which it does not specify whether, in the event of an attack by China, it would send troops to protect the enclave.

Washington's official policy stresses its opposition to any unilateral change in the current situation and calls for a peaceful resolution of relations between both sides of the Strait.

In the opinion of the Chinese foreign minister, it is not Beijing "who violates international rules, unilaterally changes the

and undermines the stability of the Taiwan Strait, but the secessionist forces for the independence of Taiwan and a small number of countries with the attempt to take advantage of of the independence of Taiwan.

Qin has assured that these forces seek to "empty the principle of one China, divide China peacefully, misrepresent the history of World War II, subvert the order established after it and run over China's sovereignty."

At a recent conference in Beijing, senior diplomat Xu Bu, president of the China Institute of International Relations and a member of the UN Secretary General's high-level advisory team on multilateralism, claimed that the only way to stem the deterioration in relations between Washington and Beijing was the commitment of the United States to "the principle of one China [defended by the Asian giant]" and "the policy of one China [formula that Washington prefers to define its relationship with Beijing and Taiwan]" and to make sure that the first power "does not try to break the red lines from the Chinese point of view."

This is "the main point," he said in a talk organized by the China Journalists Association.

In the speech dedicated to the Chinese modernization model, in which he has pronounced the word "development" up to 37 times, according to the transcription provided in Spanish, the Foreign Minister has puffed up his chest for Beijing's role in reestablishing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and immediately afterwards he has assured, concisely, that China is trying to "promote peace talks" in Ukraine "with an impartial attitude" to "achieve de-escalation of the situation".

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