Zhang Xiaogang Photo: mod.gov.cn

In response to remarks by the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command during a US Congressional hearing claiming that the Chinese mainland's "increasingly aggressive actions near Taiwan are not just exercise. They are rehearsals," and that the US should turn the Taiwan Straits into an unmanned "hellscape" to deter China, Zhang Xiaogang, a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson, said at a regular press conference on Thursday that the Taiwan question is purely China's internal affairs, and how to resolve it is a matter among the Chinese, which tolerates no external interference.

Some individuals in the US have been making unwarranted comments and baseless speculations about China's legitimate and necessary actions to defend its national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Their attempts to intimidate others with empty rhetoric only expose their true nature - preserving their own hegemonic self-interest at the cost of destabilizing other nations, Zhang said. "Threats and blackmail against China are futile; the Chinese military will never yield to such tactics."

When asked about reports from Taiwan media, claiming the US side sent a retired four-star army general, who was also a former commander of US Forces Korea, to serve as the senior observer for the war games of this year's Han Kuang Exercise, and the war games revealed five potential patterns of joint operations between Taiwan and the US in wartime, Zhang said that we firmly oppose any form of military collusion between the US and Taiwan.

To embolden and support "Taiwan independence" separatists is to ruin peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits. Those who do that will get burned for playing with fire, and taste the bitter fruit of their own doing, Zhang said.

We urge the US side to stop stirring up troubles on the Taiwan question, earnestly abide by the one-China principle and the stipulations of the three China-US joint communiqués, and deliver on its promise of not supporting "Taiwan independence". We solemnly warn the DPP authorities that those who solicit US support for "Taiwan independence" will be stabbed in the back, and be abandoned as a useless pawn, the spokesperson said.

Global Times