The joint statement to be issued after the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting is expected to include strong support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and other international organizations, a senior US Department of State official told Japanese media on Tuesday.
The Asahi Shimbun in a report yesterday quoted the unnamed official as saying that Taiwan’s participation would help other nations fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Not only does Taiwan have the right to participate, but it has a lot of experience that can help all of us in the fight against COVID-19,” the official said. “It would be self-defeating to exclude them.”
Photo: Reuters
The report also quoted the official as saying that China dominated discussions during the second day of meetings on Tuesday.
“The China issue was the most important of the many important issues we had to discuss,” they said.
Ministers in attendance expressed strong concerns about China’s human rights abuses, the official said.
Human rights “are not a domestic issue; it is an issue that should be acted upon in accordance with the international obligations that China has signed,” they said, citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international covenants.
Attendees also discussed China’s economic coercion and increasing military activity in the South China Sea, the report said.
The G7 foreign ministers’ meeting was held in London from Monday to yesterday ahead of the main summit, which is to be held in Cornwall, England, from June 11 to 13.
It was the first in-person meeting of the G7 to be held since August 2019 in Biarritz, France.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
RSS