China underscored its commitment to its claim to Taiwan, telling world leaders that anyone who gets in the way of its determination to reunify with the self- governing island would be "crushed by the wheels of history."
"Only when China is fully reunified can there be true peace across the Taiwan Strait," Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, said at the UN General Assembly.
He said Beijing would "take the most forceful steps to oppose external interference".
China vehemently defends its claim on Taiwan, which separated from the mainland after a 1949 civil war and now functions with its own government.
A recent visit by the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, markedly ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing.
The language, while forceful, was not out of the realm of the normal for China.
Taiwan is a core issue of the country's policy, and Mr Wang's appearance - instead of his boss, Chinese leader Xi Jinping -- was a signal that the speech was not a major one.
Mr Wang's comments come a day after a 90 minute-long meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in New York, their first talks since Ms Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August.
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After the meeting, China accused the United States of sending "very wrong, dangerous signals" on Taiwan.
Mr Blinken told Mr Wang maintenance of the peace and stability of Taiwan was vitally important, a senior Biden administration official told reporters.
Asked last week in a CBS 60 Minutes interview whether US forces would defend Taiwan, Mr Biden replied: "Yes, if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack".
The statement was his most explicit to date about committing US troops to the defend the island. It also
appeared to go beyond a long-standing U.S. policy of "strategic ambiguity," which does not make clear whether the United States would respond militarily to an attack on Taiwan.
