In response to Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan, China has decided to impose sanctions on the "speaker" of the US House of Representatives.
"Despite China's serious concerns and staunch resistance, Pelosi insisted on visiting Taiwan, seriously interfering in China's internal affairs, undermining China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, trampling on the one-China policy, and safeguarding cross-strait peace and stability to threaten,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing justified the step on Friday.
The ministry accused Pelosi of acting "viciously" and "provocatively."
The sanctions would also apply to their immediate family.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of wanting to change the status quo in the Taiwan Straits with missile tests and military exercises.
At the meeting of the Southeast Asian international community Asean in Cambodia's Phnom Penh on Friday, Blinken said there was no justification for the military response to the peaceful visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, as quoted by a Western official, according to Bloomberg news agency .
Blinken stressed that American policy towards Taiwan has not changed, but that China is taking increasingly provocative steps to disrupt the status quo, the Western official further quoted him as saying, according to Bloomberg.
The day before, the ASEAN foreign ministers had called on all sides to exercise extreme restraint.
With a view to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, they called for a refrain from provocative actions.
The crisis could lead to "open conflicts" and "unpredictable consequences".
In response to the recent escalation of the conflict over Taiwan, the United States had postponed testing of an ICBM, according to the White House.
"It is not in the interests of the United States, Taiwan and the region to allow tensions to escalate any further," White House spokesman for national security issues John Kirby said on Thursday.
While China is conducting "destabilizing military exercises around Taiwan," the United States is instead "demonstrating the behavior of a responsible nuclear power by reducing the risks of miscalculation," Kirby said.
At the same time, he announced that the US aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan would remain in the vicinity of Taiwan to "monitor the situation".
The Taiwanese army, meanwhile, said the Chinese military repeatedly crossed the unofficial China-Taiwan maritime border on the second day of its maneuvers.
"Several Chinese warplanes and warships" had already crossed the center line in the Taiwan Strait in the morning (local time), the Ministry of Defense in Taipei said on Friday.