Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying. Photo: VCG

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on Sunday posted eight tweets in a row on Twitter in a powerful rejection of US claims of China "overreacting" to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's provocative trip to the island of Taiwan. In the last tweet of the series, Hua pointed out that "the Chinese people will never forget their national shame and will never allow those bandits to bully and plunder China again."

Following China's biggest ever military drills in the Taiwan Straits, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken bluntly called China's response to Pelosi's trip to Taiwan an "overreaction," Turkish state-run media outlet Anadolu Agency reported on Friday.  

"The fact is speaker's visit was peaceful. There is no justification to this extreme, disproportionate and escalatory military response," Blinken was quoted in the article as saying at a news conference in Cambodia where he was attending the ASEAN summit.

The US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said on Sunday that China's actions in and around the Taiwan Straits "threaten the status quo of many decades," adding that "the world should hold Beijing accountable to maintain the peace."

Rebutting these claims, Hua told the ambassador and the US Department of State, "You are wrong." She pointed out the fact that the US does not represent the whole world, still less the great many developing countries.

"The US should not pretend to be surprised about the Chinese response, as we have tried every means to warn of the consequences of Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, including at the highest level," Hua continued. 

Commenting on Pelosi calling her visit to Taiwan "an unofficial one," Hua said it has shown the US government's commitment to have only unofficial relations with Taiwan to be a lie. "Could a visit by the No. 3 figure of the US government on a military aircraft escorted by naval vessels be described as 'unofficial'?"

This is proof that the US administration has been complicit all along and therefore must accept all responsibility and consequences, she noted. 

The spokesperson reiterated that the only way forward for China-US relations is to return to the one-China principle and the three Sino-US joint communiqués instead of salami-slicing the one-China policy or changing it by stealth.

Later, Hua reposted a tweet of ChaoyangShaoxia, an observer of international affairs, which said that the G7 is acting like a thief crying "stop thief", while China has the backing of over 160 countries for its righteous cause.

China on Friday announced eight countermeasures in response to Pelosi's highly provocative visit to the island of Taiwan, including canceling China-US theater commanders talks, defense policy coordination talks and the military maritime security consultative mechanism, and suspending cooperation on illegal immigration repatriation, drug control and climate change.

On Friday, it also announced sanctions against Pelosi and her immediate family members as she insisted on visiting Taiwan in disregard of China's serious concerns and firm opposition, making her the highest-ranking US politician to be sanctioned by China.