Washington supports its European partners and allies as they develop mutually beneficial relations with Taiwan, the US Department of State said on Tuesday, adding that each country should be able to interpret its own “one China” policy.
US Department of State spokesman Ned Price made the remarks at a news conference when asked to comment on China demanding Lithuania to withdraw its ambassador from Beijing earlier that day.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 20 announced its plan to establish a representative office in Lithuania — the first office in Europe to have “Taiwanese” in its name.
Photo courtesy of the US Department of State’s Asia Pacific Media Hub
Lithuania plans to open a representative office in Taiwan by this fall, although the two nations do not have formal diplomatic ties.
“Well, we do stand in solidarity with our NATO ally Lithuania and we condemn the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] recent retaliatory actions, including the recall of Beijing’s ambassador from Vilnius and demanding Lithuania recall its ambassador from Beijing,” Price said.
“Taiwan is a global leader in public health and advanced manufacturing and democratic governance, to name just a few areas in which the international community — including the United States — benefits from engagement with Taiwan,” he added.
“Each country should be able to determine the contours of its own ‘one China’ policy without outside coercion. We have done just that,” he said.
Asked what actions the US expects Japan to take to keep stability across the Taiwan Strait — after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese National Security Adviser Akiba Takeo met in Washington on Monday — Price reiterated the US’ support for a peaceful resolution of cross-strait relations.
“We have urged Beijing ... to cease its military, its diplomatic, its economic pressure against Taiwan and to engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan,” Price said.
In Taipei, the foreign ministry said it welcomed Washington’s comments.
The ministry thanked US President Joe Biden’s administration for continuously supporting Taiwan, and backing Taiwan and Lithuania in establishing representative offices in each other’s countries, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement yesterday.
Taiwan would continue to develop practical and mutually beneficial relations with all like-minded countries, without flinching under outside coercion, she added.
On Tuesday, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed regret over Beijing’s move to recall its ambassador, but said that the country is determined to pursue mutually beneficial ties with Taiwan, like many other countries in the EU and around the world.
If Lithuania does not cease its engagements with Taiwan, it is not impossible that China and Lithuania might sever relations, Liu Zuokui (劉作奎), director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Department of Central and Eastern European Studies, told the Chinese-language Global Times on Tuesday.
Nabila Massrali, spokeswoman for the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic body, told the Central News Agency that while the ambassador recall was a bilateral matter between China and Lithuania, developments in Beijing’s ties with individual EU members “inevitably have an impact on overall EU-China relations.”
“We regret the Chinese action, and are following developments closely,” Massrali said in a statement.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS