Chinese Nationalist Commenter Deletes Pelosi’s Tweet After Twitter Bans Account

BEIJING, July 30 (Reuters) – Prominent Chinese commentator Hu Xijin said on Saturday he had deleted a tweet warning of military retaliation if U.S. fighter jets accompany House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on any visit to Taiwan, after Twitter blocked his account.

Pelosi, number three in the line of US presidential succession, after Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, indicated on Friday that they were embarking on a trip to Asia.

He did not mention Taiwan, but speculation about his visit to the democratically-ruled island claimed by Beijing has intensified in recent days, fueling tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Biden in a phone call Thursday that Washington should respect the one-China principle and “those who play with fire will die for it.” Read more

Hu, former editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times tabloid, wrote on China’s Weibo microblog: “I have conveyed the message: If the US military sends fighter jets to escort Pelosi to Taiwan, then the move would take the nature vile such a visit to another level, and would constitute aggression.”

If Pelosi were to visit Taiwan, Hu, a brand nationalist with a wide Twitter following, wrote: “Our fighter jets should deploy all obstructive tactics. If they are still ineffective, I think it’s okay to shoot down Pelosi’s plane as well “.

Hu said he had to delete the tweet to unlock his Twitter account, which had been blocked, as Twitter deemed the tweet to be in violation of the platform’s rules and the account holder had to remove it.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

On Friday, a White House national security spokesman said the United States had not seen any evidence of imminent Chinese military action against Taiwan when asked about a possible visit to the island by Pelosi.

Visits by US officials to Taiwan are a source of tension between Beijing and Washington, which has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself.

The United States has a large military presence in Asia and the Pacific, including around the South China Sea, where a US aircraft carrier is passing through as part of what the US Navy said was a patrol routine Read more

(This story has been rerun to restore the Chinese commenter’s name to lede)

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Reporting by Ryan Woo; Edited by William Mallard

Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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