BEIJING, August 17. /TASS/. China highly appreciates Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement that US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan was a pre-planned provocation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a news briefing on Wednesday.
"China highly appreciates President Putin’s statement," he said. Since Pelosi's visit to Taiwan more than 170 countries have reaffirmed their commitment to the One China principle and expressed support for China in defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity," he stressed.
"President Putin's statement reflects high-level strategic cooperation between China and Russia. Also, it is a manifestation of the two countries' consistent and firm mutual support on issues that concern each other's key interests," Wang continued.
He pointed out that China was ready to further cooperate with the international community, to jointly defend the main goals and principles of the UN Charter, and to jointly maintain peace and stability in the region and in the world.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his address to the participants in and guests of the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security, said that US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan was a pre-planned provocation. He also said that "with the use of such actions, the Western globalist elites, among other things, are trying to divert their own peoples’ attention from acute socio-economic problems - falling living standards, unemployment, poverty and deindustrialization - and to shift their own failures onto other countries, including Russia and China, which defend their point of view and are building sovereign development policies and refusing to succumb to the dictating of supranational elites."
Taiwan issue
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait region soared after Pelosi's August 2-3 trip to Taipei. The Chinese armed forces responded by conducting large-scale military exercises, including rocket launches in six areas around the island.
Taiwan has been governed by its own administration since 1949, when the remnants of the Kuomintang forces under Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled to the island after being defeated in the Chinese civil war. Taipei has since retained the flag and some other attributes of the former Republic of China, which had existed on the mainland before the Communists came to power. According Beijing’s official position, supported by most countries, including Russia, it is one of China’s provinces.