The Chinese Embassy in the United States on Tuesday slammed Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Lai Ching-te's erroneous remarks about China's Taiwan region.

Lai had an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on July 5, where he propagated the so-called "four pillars," a gloss-over of his despicable trade of selling out Taiwan to the U.S.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the embassy, has sent a Letter to the Editor to sternly refute Lai's remarks and it was published by the WSJ on Tuesday.

Lai proposes to "build up Taiwan's deterrence," but his true agenda is to resist by force the motherland's reunification, Liu said in the letter, adding that a "military threat" from the Chinese mainland is the DPP's pretext for purchasing over $4 billion in U.S. weaponry in two years alone. 

"Squandering 2.6 percent of local GDP, the DPP is turning the island into a powder keg," he said.

Lai also advocates "secure supply chains," but the real thing is to decouple with the mainland, Liu said, noting that cross-Straits trade volume grew by over 7,000 times from 1978 to 2021 and the Chinese mainland is Taiwan's biggest export market and investment destination.

Liu said Lai's support for "the cross-Straits status quo" is actually for so-called "peaceful separation" and "one China, one Taiwan."

Given that the one-China principle is the foundation for cross-Straits peace and stability, Lai's word tricks are not in the interest of peace at all, the spokesperson said.

"No one should underestimate the resolve of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity," Liu said, adding that the DPP's attempt to sell out Taiwan is despicable, and seeking independence is doomed to fail.

(Cover: The Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei, southeast China's Taiwan. /CFP)