China's state-owned news media Monday and over this past weekend attacked U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the lifting of all restrictions on U.S. contacts with Taiwan.

Pompeo announced the U.S. would end decades-old restrictions on official contacts with Taiwan. Executive agencies of the U.S. federal government "should consider all 'contact guidelines' regarding relations with Taiwan previously issued by the Department of State...to be null and void."

China's news media said Pompeo was "widely known for his barefaced lies" and is the "worst U.S. secretary of state," according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

CGTN, the English-language news channel owned by China Central TV, said Pompeo was a member of U.S. President Donald Trump's base that "blames China for everything going wrong in their lives." It called Pompeo's decision "so inflammatory" the Trump administration had held back on it for four years.

There has been no official statement from China.

Xinhua News Agency, whose statements are sometimes viewed as official, said Pompeo "is seeking to maliciously inflict a long-lasting scar on China-U.S. ties."

"Pompeo may covet damaged U.S.-China ties as his political legacy - but history will only remember him as a failed self-dealing opportunist who repeatedly and unscrupulously resorts to 'lying diplomacy' at the price of global peace," Xinhua News Agency said in an opinion article published Sunday.

Xinhua News Agency said Pompeo's Taiwan decision proved Pompeo "is only interested in stoking unwarranted confrontations and has no interest in world peace."

It said Pompeo "should not expect that China will sit back and do nothing. Those political clowns will be punished for what they have done to harm China's core interests."

CGTN called Pompeo's announcement "a cowardly act of sabotage."

"The Trump administration, in its continuing efforts to burn the house down before leaving office, has crossed a dangerous red line with China days before incoming President Joe Biden takes office," CGTN said in an editorial.

The U.S. recognizes the People's Republic of China as the government of China. Despite this, the U.S. maintains unofficial contacts with Taiwan - including a representative in Taipei. The U.S. supplies military equipment to Taiwan.

Taiwan praised Pompeo. It said it was "grateful" to the U.S. for supporting Taiwan. Premier Su Tseng-chang said: "We also hope to interact actively with each other further so that Taiwan could have an even bigger space in the international society."

"Decades of discrimination removed," Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the U.S. said in a tweet. "A huge day in our bilateral relationship. I will cherish every opportunity."