Chinese Ambassador to the US said that China is handling the "serious fallout" from US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's highly provocative visit to China's Taiwan region despite China's firm opposition and repeated representations, urging the US to draw lessons from it and stop its words and actions that would escalate the tension.

Qin Gang, the Chinese envoy to the US, made the remarks at an event on Tuesday where he took a joint interview with the US mainstream media over Pelosi's visit, which has led to a surge of tension across the Taiwan Straits. On Sunday, just 12 days after Pelosi's visit, a delegation of US lawmakers also made a sneaky visit to Taiwan island.

Pelosi visited China's Taiwan region with the connivance and arrangement of the US government, which has seriously violated the commitments made by the US. Facts have proved that this is an out-and-out political provocation and farce, said Qin.

In response to some claims by the US side that China is escalating the situation, overreacting, and using Pelosi's visit as a pretext to establish a "new normal," Qin refuted that it was the US side who took the first step to provoke China on the Taiwan question and openly infringed on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"China had made the utmost efforts to prevent this crisis from being imposed on China. We had expressed firm opposition at various levels and through various channels. We had warned that if Pelosi made the visit, there would be very serious consequences. China would firmly and forcefully respond. To our regret, the US chose not to listen," he said.

After Pelosi landed in Taipei on August 2, China announced a series of joint military operations around the island of Taiwan starting the same evening and launched a series of countermeasures, including sanctions on Pelosi and some "Taiwan independence" separatist forces.

"China's military exercises are open, transparent and professional. It's natural, legitimate and lawful for China to defend its territorial integrity and resist division of its territory. We don't need any excuse for that! The US should not feel surprised about this. If we needed an excuse, why had we worked so hard to prevent it from happening in the first place?" asked the envoy.

"We are handling the serious fallout from Pelosi's visit," noted Qin.

He urged the US to draw lessons from it, to stop pointing fingers at China, stop using words and actions that escalate the tension, stop using Taiwan to contain China, and not allow "Taiwan independence" separatist forces to go further down the dangerous path.

The Chinese ambassador to Norway Yi Xianliang also issued a warning to the US in an interview on Tuesday, saying that if the US would like to take some measures to damage China's core interest or fundamental interest, then China will have to act.

"If the Americans, the outside forces and the separatists on the island take more provocative actions, the unification time will be shortened, not in 2049, perhaps even tomorrow," said Yi.

Pelosi arrived in Taiwan at late night on August 2, arousing a wave of firm opposition and condemnation from China and the international community.

China announced eight countermeasures on August 5 in response to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, including canceling China-US theater commanders talk, defense policy coordination talks, military maritime security consultative mechanism and suspending cooperation on illegal immigration repatriation, drug control and climate change.

Global Times