NPR:
China’s ambassador to the United States issued a warning Thursday: The U.S. could face “military conflict” with China over the future status of Taiwan.
In his first one-on-one interview since assuming his post in Washington, D.C., last July, Qin Gang accused Taiwan of “walking down the road toward independence,” and added, “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence, it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in a military conflict.”
It was an unusually direct statement about the U.S. and Taiwan. Observers say China usually speaks in more general terms, such as saying that the U.S. is “playing with fire.”