China will sanction US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her close associates as a result of her visit to Taiwan, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Friday.
The sanction threat comes as Pelosi stated that China will not isolate Taiwan by barring US officials from travelling there.
Pelosi spoke in Tokyo on Friday as she concluded her Asia tour, which included a visit to Taipei that enraged China.
Pelosi claimed that the Chinese have tried to isolate Taiwan, most recently by preventing the self-governing island from joining the World Health Organization.
“They may try to keep Taiwan from visiting or participating in other places, but they will not isolate Taiwan by preventing us to travel there,” she said, defending her trip that some say has escalated tension in the region.
Pelosi called the contention “ridiculous” and said that her trip to Taiwan was not intended to change the status quo for the island but to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait.
She praised Taiwan’s hard-fought democracy, including its progress in diversity including LGBTQ rights, and success in technology and business, while criticising China’s violations of trade agreements, proliferation of weapons and human rights problems.
“If we do not speak out for human rights in China because of commercial interests, we lose all moral authority to speak out about human rights any place in the world,” Pelosi said.
“China has some contradictions — some progress in terms of lifting people up, some horrible things happening in terms of the Uyghurs. In fact, it’s been labeled a genocide.”
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