US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said that the US is concerned about China’s aggressive actions against Taiwan and remains committed to ensuring Taiwan “has the ability to defend itself.”
“What we’ve seen, and what is of real concern to us, is increasingly aggressive actions by the government in Beijing directed at Taiwan, raising tensions in the straits,” Blinken said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press.
He said Washington has a longstanding bipartisan commitment to Taipei under the Taiwan Relations Act to ensure Taiwan “has the ability to defend itself,” and to make sure the US is sustaining peace and security in the western Pacific.
Photo: CNA
“We stand behind those commitments,” he said.
However, Blinken refused to comment on a hypothetical situation when asked if the US would respond militarily to a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Meanwhile, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo yesterday posted a photograph of himself eating Taiwanese dried pineapple on Twitter, his latest public declaration of support for Taiwan.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs last month said that it had not yet discussed the possibility of Pompeo visiting Taiwan.
However, when asked yesterday by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) about the possibility of a visit to Taiwan by Pompeo some time this year, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) nodded and said that the ministry “is working on it.”
Additional reporting by Lu Yi-hsuan
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