The US on Tuesday backed Taiwan’s assertion that the Taiwan Strait is an international waterway, a further rebuff to Beijing’s claim to exercise sovereignty over the strategic passage.
On Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country “has sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the Taiwan Strait,” and called it “a false claim when certain countries call the Taiwan Strait ‘international waters.’”
On Tuesday, US Department of State spokesman Ned Price said in an e-mail: “The Taiwan Strait is an international waterway, meaning that the Taiwan Strait is an area where high-seas freedoms, including freedom of navigation and overflight, are guaranteed under international law.”
Photo: Reuters
The world has “an abiding interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and we consider this central to the security and prosperity of the broader Indo-Pacific region,” he added.
Price reiterated US concerns about China’s “aggressive rhetoric and coercive activity regarding Taiwan,” and said the US “would continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, and that includes transiting through the Taiwan Strait.”
In Taipei, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said the Strait was by “no means China’s inland sea.”
Photo: Reuters
“China’s ambition to swallow up Taiwan has never stopped or been concealed,” he told reporters. “The Taiwan Strait is a maritime area for free international navigation.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said that Taipei was “cooperating with external forces to hype up the issue.”
This “harms the interests of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and betrays the interests of the Chinese nation — it is despicable,” office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said in Beijing.
In related news, Japan and Australia’s defense ministers yesterday vowed to step up their ties to support democratic values in the Indo-Pacific region, and agreed to work more closely with Southeast Asia and the Pacific island nations where China is seeking to expand its influence.
Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles and his Japanese counterpart, Nobuo Kishi, said that regionwide cooperation is necessary to maintain and strengthen the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region, where there is growing fear that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might embolden China to increase its assertiveness.
“It is clear that our region faces the most complex set of strategic circumstances we have had since the end of World War II and what the region does matters,” Marles told a joint news conference in Tokyo after holding talks with Kishi.
“Only by working together can we uphold the rules-based international order, contribute to an effective balance of military power and ensure our region remains stable, peaceful and prosperous,” Marles added.
Kishi said the two ministers shared their concerns about the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He said they remain strongly opposed to any unilateral change of the “status quo” in the East and South China seas, and reaffirmed their commitment to a mutual vision of “a free and open” international order of the seas.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred
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