G7 slams China for ‘destabilising region’ over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan

‘There is no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait’, say foreign ministers in joint statement

Yet bloc of democracies makes clear there is no change to their ‘respective one-China policies’ and ‘basic positions’ regarding the island

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Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu gesturing next to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before her departure from Songshan Airport in Taipei on Wednesday. Photo: EPA-EFE/Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Handout

Published: 2:50am, 4 Aug 2022Updated: 11:05pm, 4 Aug 2022

The world’s most powerful democracies have slammed China for “increasing tensions and destabilising the region” over its response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

The Group of 7’s top diplomats on Wednesday said they were “concerned by recent and announced threatening actions by the People’s Republic of China, particularly live-fire exercises and economic coercion, which risk unnecessary escalation”.

The joint statement came after Beijing’s announced plans for military drills in areas encircling Taiwan from Thursday to Sunday, with foreign airlines told to avoid these “danger zones”.

Beijing also banned more than 2,000 Taiwanese products from mainland China’s market following a whirlwind overnight visit by Pelosi, who is second in line to the US presidency, and a small group of lawmakers.

“There is no justification to use a visit as pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait. It is normal and routine for legislators from our countries to travel internationally,” read the statement from the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US and the EU.

It urged China not to “unilaterally change the status quo by force in the region, and to resolve cross-strait differences by peaceful means”.