Chinese Ambassador to the US Qin Gang on Wednesday (local time) said that the United States is undermining the “One China” policy through its support for Taiwan.

“We urge the United States to honour its commitments with actions and to fully implement the One China policy. Only through the adherence to that policy can a long and lasting peaceful reunification happen of mainland China and Taiwan,” Qin said at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. The Ambassador claimed that the Chinese Government is doing everything to avoid a war with Taiwan.

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“People on both banks of the Taiwan Strait, are our compatriots. The last thing we would like to do is to fight our compatriots, so we will do everything we can with the greatest sincerity to achieve a peaceful reunification,” he said.

The issue of Taiwan has been at the forefront of US-China relations in recent months. Tensions between China and Washington, which is committed to supporting the island’s self-defence, and Beijing over Taiwan were in the open earlier this month when their respective defence chiefs met at the Shangri-La Dialogue defence conference in Singapore.

Taiwan and mainland China have been governed separately since the defeated Nationalists retreated to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war more than 70 years ago. But China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views the self-ruled island as part of its territory despite having never controlled it.

Beijing has not ruled out military force to take Taiwan and has kept the pressure on the democratic island over the past few years with frequent warplane flights into the island’s ADIZ.

An ADIZ is unilaterally imposed and distinct from sovereign airspace, which is defined under international law as extending 12 nautical miles from a territory’s shoreline.

Meanwhile, Biden on Wednesday (local time) said that he is planning to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the next ten days.

“I think I’ll be talking to President Xi within the next 10 days,” Biden said in an address to reporters as he returned from a climate-related trip to Massachusetts.

The US President also cast doubt on a trip reportedly planned by House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan next month. Biden said the US military believes it is not a good idea for Pelosi to travel to Taiwan as planned.