Source: BBC

China has summoned a senior US envoy in protest after Washington announced it would sell two warships to Taiwan.

Vice-Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang made “solemn representations” with Kaye Lee, the US charge d’affaires, China’s foreign ministry said.

The arms deal, worth $1.83bn (£1.22bn), comes as tensions rise over China’sisland-building in the South China Sea.

Taiwan expressed gratitude to Washington for helping with its defence needs.

China views Taiwan as a breakaway province which will one day be reunited with the mainland, though relations have warmed in recent weeks.

Leaders from both countries met last month for the first time since the end of the civil war in 1949.

China maintains a right to use force if Taiwan attempts to gain independence.

‘Strongly oppose’

The Chinese statement said Mr Zheng had told Ms Lee at the Wednesday meeting that Taiwan “is an inalienable part of China’s territory” and that it “strongly opposes the US arms sale”.

t added that the deal had “severely damaged China’s sovereignty and security interest”, and pledged to sanction the US firms involved in it.

The US said the deal, the first in four years, was consistent with its “long-standing policy on arms sales to Taiwan”.

Relations between the US and China are frayed over China’s construction of artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea.

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