Beijing has announced sanctions against seven Taiwanese government officials and politicians, saying they are pushing a pro-independence agenda for the self-ruled island . The Taiwan Affairs Office of the Communist Party said on Tuesday those sanctioned and their family members would not be allowed to enter mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau. And organisations they were affiliated with could not cooperate with mainland organisations or individuals. “Their affiliated companies and financial sponsors would not be allowed to gain profits from the mainland,” a spokesman of the office was quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying. The office would take other necessary measures and those sanctioned would be “held accountable for life”, the spokesman said. The sanctions were announced following trips to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in early August and a US Congress delegation led by Senator Ed Markey on Monday. “For a period of time, a small number of Taiwan independence die-hards have tried their best to collude with external forces to carry out ‘independence’ provocations, deliberately inciting cross-strait confrontation and wantonly undermining the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait. They performed extremely poorly during Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan,” the TAO spokesman said. Six of the seven sanctions are imposed on members of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan. They are Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan representative to the US; Ker Chien-ming, DPP caucus head of the legislature; Wang Ting-yu, a legislator who sits on the foreign relations and defence committee; Wellington Koo, secretary general of the island’s National Security Council; Tsai Chi-chang, vice-speaker of Taiwan’s legislature; and Lin Fei-fan, deputy secretary general of the DPP. The non-DPP member sanctioned is Chen Jiau-hua, New Power Party legislator and chairwoman. In December, the mainland announced sanctions against Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang, Taiwan’s legislative president You Si-kun and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu. Huang Yu-lin, the president of Taiwan Foundation for Democracy chaired by You, and Timothy Hsiang, secretary general of Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund chaired by Wu, are also sanctioned. Taiwan said on Tuesday Beijing had no right to intervene in the island’s exchanges and its contact with other countries, and there was no way Taipei would accept threats from an “authoritarian regime”. “The Chinese side has tried to create a chilling effect by attacking our political and opinion leaders who have actively sought to increase Taiwan’s visibility, but all it does is create resentment for the Taiwanese people,” said Joanne Ou, spokeswoman for the island’s foreign ministry. China sanctioning Taiwan ‘like moving a stone, dropping it on your own foot’ She said Beijing overreacted to Pelosi’s visit and deliberately used the trip as an excuse to risk instability in the Taiwan Strait. “Such coercion is the major reason for deteriorating cross-strait relations,” she said. Ou also condemned Beijing for staging massive war games around Taiwan to threaten the island just because of visits by foreign legislators, saying it was normal practice for democratic allies to hold regular exchanges. “It is absurd and barbarous for China to use [the visits] to irresponsibly start risky military provocation, which serves only to undermine regional stability and disrupt major air and sea paths, as well as commercial activities,” she said. Responding to the mainland’s sanctions, the Taiwanese politicians named said they felt “proud” and “honoured” to be on the list. “If I am sanctioned because I represented the legislature of the Republic of China [Taiwan’s official title] to receive US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi … I would be proud of it,” said the island’s vice-speaker, Tsai Chi-chang. “It is highly unacceptable for the Chinese government to threaten us, all because we speak for Taiwan.” Ker and Lin also described feeling honoured at being sanctioned. “The first thing my friends and colleagues said to me when they learned about the sanctions was ‘congratulations’,” Lin said. DPP legislator Wang said it was absurd for Beijing to sanction him simply because he had spoken out against military threats from the mainland. “As to banning us from visiting, we can always travel to other places – the world is big. Besides, China has long banned me from visiting for years, and the so-called sanction is nothing new,” he added. New Power Party’s Chen said her party had been upholding the “value of Taiwan independence” and she too said she felt honoured to be sanctioned. Beijing delivered a furious response following the trip by Pelosi, the first US House speaker to visit the island in 25 years. The US said the trip did not represent changes in US policies towards Taiwan, but Beijing took it as an endorsement of Taiwan’s pro-independence agenda. Beijing staged a series of massive war games encircling Taiwan for a week from August 4 in retaliation for Pelosi’s visit, labelling the trip “provocation”. Tensions across the Taiwan Strait show no sign of calming down. The People’s Liberation Army started another round of drills in response to the visit by Markey, who met Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday. “[We] hope to continue to deepen our cooperation with the US to jointly maintain prosperity and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and we also hope we can work with like-minded international friends to strengthen economic and investment relations in order to set up a safer supply chain,” Tsai was quoted as saying. Contest ‘gorilla in the room’ firing missiles over Taiwan: US Navy commander Beijing and Taiwan split in 1949 at the end of a civil war when the Kuomintang was defeated by Communist Party forces and fled to Taipei. Beijing considers the self-governed island a breakaway province that it will take back, by force if necessary. Most countries acknowledge Beijing as the sole representative of a China that includes Taiwan but many, including the US, are opposed to a change of the status quo by force.