The Chinese Foreign Ministry has declared that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan "are an inalienable part of China’s territory" and therefore must be referred to as such by carriers operating in China, according to Bloomberg.
"Whatever the US said will never change the objective fact that there is only one China in the world. We have to point out that foreign enterprises operating in China should respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, abide by China’s law and respect the national sentiment of the Chinese people," the ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement, referring to Beijing’s policy of not recognizing Taiwan as an independent state.
According to a statement delivered by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, US President Donald Trump would "stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens."
READ MORE: As US-China Tensions Increase, Is US Foreign Policy Off Track?
This development comes in the wake of a visit by a high-level US delegation led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to China, in a bid settle the ongoing trade disputes that emerged in the wake of US President Donald Trump's recently-introduced tariffs targeting China, which were met with retaliatory moves from the Asian country and have sent stock markets across the globe still lower.
Last week, the famous American investor Warren Buffett predicted that despite the current tensions in relations between the United States and China, the probability of an all-out trade war between the two countries is very low.
READ MORE: Warren Buffett Reveals the Likelihood of 'Extremely Foolish' US-China Trade War
The business mogul argued that the US and China will retain their superpower status for many years to come, and that the two nations have too many common interests to engage each other in a serious confrontation.
