BEIJING, August 22. /TASS/. Recent remarks by US Ambassador to China R. Nicholas Burns on mounting tensions in the Taiwan Strait should be viewed as the distortion of the facts proving the "empty rhetoric and hegemonic logic" of America’s authorities, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday, commenting on the diplomat’s interview with CNN.
"Such statements by Burns are a distortion of the facts when black is called white. His remarks yet again testify to the empty rhetoric and hegemonic logic of the American side," according to a statement published on the Chinese diplomatic agency’s website.
It notes that Washington continues to crank up pressure in the region, "slinging mud at China." "The status quo in the Taiwan Strait is being changed by the US, and not by the Chinese side," the agency specified. "It is obvious that the United States was first to launch a provocation," it explained.
On August 19, the American diplomat suggested that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei could not have triggered the crisis in US-China relations. According to him, Beijing had "overreacted." He insisted that he "defended the speaker." "I defended her right to travel to Taiwan. I defended the peace and stability that we've had in the Taiwan Strait for nearly six decades," the US envoy said, recalling his meeting with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng who summoned him on the night on August 2 to express protest to the US over Pelosi’s visit.
The Chinese government repeatedly stated that the August 2-3 visit to Taipei by Pelosi who is the third highest-ranking US politician was a provocation which should be regarded as a "wrong signal to Taiwanese separatists." A day after this visit, Beijing introduced sanctions against the US House Speaker and her family as well as froze several bilateral intergovernmental mechanisms of interaction with Washington. Additionally, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army launched military drills in the Taiwan Strait and around the island.