Liz Truss Photo: AFP

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, due to need of her campaign to become the next prime minister and the UK's policy of clinging to the US' apron strings, criticized China for its countermeasures over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan visit, which only proved that Britain has lost its credibility as an independent country, Chinese analysts said. 

They stressed that China will firmly respond to provocations from the US and its allies that challenge the one-China principle and undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

Truss on Wednesday summoned Chinese Ambassador to Britain Zheng Zeguang over "Beijing's aggressive escalation against Taiwan," and claimed that "increasingly aggressive behavior and rhetoric from Beijing threaten peace and stability in the region," according to a statement on the website of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.  

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at Thursday's media briefing that China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to this and has lodged solemn representations with Britain. 

"If Scotland were to collude with external forces and split itself from the UK, would the UK remain calm, show restraint, sit by and watch the situation deteriorate?" Wang asked. 

Ambassador Zheng Zeguang has once again lodged solemn representations to the UK side on the latter's wrong remarks and deeds on the question of Taiwan and firmly refuted its wanton accusations on Wednesday during his meeting with UK senior officials.  

Zheng stressed that whether it's talk about "helping Taiwan defend itself" or the plan by parliamentarians to visit Taiwan, they both constitute serious violations of the one-China principle and the Communiqué of the Governments of the People's Republic of China and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on an Exchange of Ambassadors issued 50 years ago. They will inevitably lead to severe consequences for China-UK relations and the UK side knows this all too well, he said. 

Britain is joining the US and is not taking into account what will happen if the Chinese mainland does not effectively contain Taiwan secessionists, Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

The White House summoned Chinese Ambassador to the US Qin Gang last week to condemn China's military activities around the island of Taiwan. According to the Chinese embassy, Qin sternly rejected the unreasonable accusations of the US side on China's military countermeasures. 

 "Now it seems that the UK has been colonized by the US, and it has failed to see how badly it's being used by the US," Wang said. He urged Britain to reflect on its current domestic problems and concentrate on solving them, instead of creating issues over Ukraine and the Taiwan Straits. 

The UK has learned no lessons from stirring up the Hong Kong-related issue and now it wants to stir up the situation across the Taiwan Straits, which is all because it cannot find its value after Brexit. Thus it is bumping around to show its existence, Wang Yiwei said. 

As Truss's remarks were made while she was running to come UK's next prime minister, Wang Yiwei said her comments were a political show for the leadership race, after all, being tough on China is politically correct in the West. 

As for future China-UK relations, Liu Zuokui, a research fellow on European studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday that since the UK was strapped tightly to the chariot of the US, China-UK relations are likely to continue to fall along with China-US relations. 

Aside from the UK, some Lithuanian politicians have also "jumped high" over the Taiwan question, and analysts warned that countries like Lithuania will continue to poke China over the issue. 

But they stressed that China will make a strong and necessary response to countries like Lithuania if they play with fire on the one-China principle, such as sanctions against more of their politicians or even the severing of diplomatic ties.