BEIJING (Reuters) – The Chinese embassy in the UK on Sunday condemned a visit by British lawmakers to Taiwan this week, saying they insisted on visiting the island despite strong Chinese opposition.

The Taiwan President’s Office said a group of six MPs from the British-Taiwan Parliamentary Group will meet with President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei on Monday.

China regards democratically governed Taiwan as its territory and is stepping up military, political and economic pressure to assert its rights.

The Chinese embassy in London said in a statement that the lawmakers “insisted on visiting the Taiwan region of China despite China’s strong opposition.”

This is “gross interference in China’s internal affairs and a serious false signal to Taiwan’s separatist independence forces,” the embassy said.

“We want to tell the relevant British politicians that any act that harms China’s interests will strongly oppose China,” he added, without elaborating.

Taiwan regularly hosts foreign legislators, which China usually denounces.

The Taiwanese government rejects China’s claim to sovereignty, saying that only the people of Taiwan can decide their future.

(Reporting by Ryan Wu; additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; editing by David Goodman)