Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong has lodged a complaint with South Korea’s ambassador to Beijing over “erroneous” remarks by the South Korean president about Taiwan, China’s foreign ministry says.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s remarks were “totally unacceptable”, Sun told the ambassador, and he also expressed “strong dissatisfaction”, according to a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Sunday.

The diplomatic dispute between Beijing and Seoul stems from a recent interview, during which Yoon said increased tension around Taiwan was due to attempts to change the status quo by force and that he opposed attempts to do so.

The South Korean leader also said the dispute between China and Taiwan was now a global issue.

“The Taiwan issue is not simply an issue between China and Taiwan, but like the issue of North Korea, it is a global issue,” he told.

China strongly rejected any comparison between the issue of Taiwan and North Korea, officials said.

“The South Korean leader made no mention of the One China principle but equated the Taiwan issue with the Korean Peninsula issue,” Sun said, according to the foreign ministry.

“Both North and South Korea are sovereign states that have joined the United Nations,” its statement said. “It is a well-known fact that the Korean Peninsula issue and the Taiwan issue are completely different in nature and in latitude and longitude and are not comparable at all.”