China angered by Biden administration democracy summit invitation to Taiwan

China is reportedly furious over the Biden administration’s decision to invite Taiwan to a first-ever “Summit for Democracy” next month, with Chinese officials blasting the U.S. as advancing its “geopolitical objectives.”

The summit, part of Biden’s pledge to help restore democracy across the world, will run from Dec. 9 to Dec. 10 for the first of two meetings. The U.S. invited 110 countries to the virtual summit, where world leaders will discuss “both individual and collective commitments, reforms, and initiatives to defend democracy and human rights at home and abroad,” according to the State Department’s website.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement to news outlets that the “invitation to participate in the ‘Summit for Democracy’ is an affirmation of Taiwan’s efforts to promote the values of democracy and human rights over the years.”

But China told reporters in Beijing it was “firmly opposed” to the invitation because Taiwan was “an inalienable part of Chinese territory.”

“U.S. actions only go to show democracy is just a cover and a tool for it to advance its geopolitical objectives, oppress other countries, divide the world and serve its own interests,” a spokesman told reporters.

The U.S. and other democratic countries are worried that Taiwan, a self-governed island close to China, will come under the rule of the People’s Republic of China, which has been beefing up its military presence and is thought to be close to invading the country. China also recently severed ties with Lithuania, which allowed Taiwan to open an embassy in its country, in another sign that it sees the island as its own territory.

The island was populated by the nationalist government in the late 1940s after the Chinese Communist Party took control of the mainland following the country’s civil war. Recently, Taiwan has been training its military and plans to spend an extra $9 billion to defend itself from Beijing.

Countries from South America to Asia were invited to the democracy summit. The U.S. intentionally kept China and Russia, its two largest adversaries, from the invitation list.