Beijing, China - Following a visit by Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen to the US, China has responded by issuing sanctions on Friday against US organizations which hosted the Taiwanese leader during her trip.

The measures announced by the Foreign Ministry in Beijing are targeting the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library outside of Los Angeles, where Tsai met Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy during a stopover in California on Wednesday.

The Hudson Institute think tank, which honored the Taiwanese president with a leadership award, has also been sanctioned, according to a statement.

Both institutions "have provided Tsai Ing-wen with platforms and facilities for her 'Taiwan independence' secessionist activities in the United States," the ministry said, adding that they "seriously violated the One China principle" as well as US agreements with Beijing.

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They also "seriously damaged China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," according to the ministry.

Universities, organizations and individuals in China will be barred from cooperating and engaging in other activities with both organizations in the US, the statement said.

Tsai stopped in the US on her return from Central America, where she met the leaders of Guatemala and Belize. The White House insists her time in the US was not an official visit.

Beijing regards Taiwan as part of China and rejects any official contact between other countries and Taipei.

China has previously raised the prospect of taking the island by force if necessary, with the US threatening to take action if that happens. Taiwan is a self-governing democracy and has long seen itself as independent.

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The Foreign Ministry in Beijing on Wednesday "firmly" condemned Tsai's high-profile visit to the US and announced countermeasures.

China's Taiwan Affairs Office on Friday also announced sanctions against Taiwan's top diplomat in the US, Bi-Khim Hsiao, as well as two groups, the Prospect Foundation – a Taipei-based Taiwanese think tank – and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, a Bangkok-based regional pro-democracy organization of which Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is a member.

In a statement, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry on Friday condemned the moves, saying that the Taiwanese president visiting other countries for diplomatic purposes was a basic right for a sovereign state and that "China is not in a position to meddle in."

The ministry said that China's intimidation will not change the fact that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait do not belong to each other.

"Wow, the PRC just sanctioned me again, for the second time," Hsiao tweeted on Friday.

Hsiao has been on a similar sanction list targeting individuals from the DPP and the Taiwan government since last August, when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.

After Pelosi's visit, tensions with Beijing reached levels not seen in decades. China responded by staging unprecedented military exercises around the island.