China urges US to stop playing 'Taiwan card'

BEIJING - China has urged Lithuania not to act as a pawn for anti-China forces and urged the United States to stop playing the "Taiwan card", Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said here Monday.

Wang made the remarks at a daily press briefing when asked to comment US Trade Representative Katherine Tai's remarks concerning China.

The United States distorted China's legitimate measures to safeguard its national sovereignty as "coercion", which has fully exposed the hypocrisy and deception of US discourse bullying, Wang said.

Wang said that speaking of coercion, the US government forced the military government of Haiti to step down in 1994, and referred to that as "a textbook example of coercive diplomacy"; in 2003, it explicitly listed 30.3 billion US dollars of military expenses for "coercive diplomacy;" it spared no effort to crack down on its competitors like Alstom and Toshiba and coerced the TSMC, Samsung and other companies to provide to the United States chip supply chain data.

"This is flat-out 'blackmail diplomacy'," he said.

Wang stressed that the fact is clear that Lithuania violated its political commitment it had made upon the establishment of diplomatic ties with China, and created the false impression of "one China, one Taiwan" in the world. "People of insight in Lithuania have also criticized this," he added.

The United States instigated the Lithuanian authorities to undermine the one-China principle from the outset and then supported, aided and abetted them, Wang said, adding that the United States tries to seek political calculation aimed at using Taiwan to contain China at the expense of Lithuania's interests.

"We urge the Lithuanian side to correct its mistakes and not act as a pawn for anti-China forces. We also warn the US side that playing the 'Taiwan card' is counterproductive and will get itself burnt," Wang said.