President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said that China’s threat of force is undiminished, even though Beijing’s largest- ever military drills around the nation seemed to be scaling down.
Furious about a visit to Taipei by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China launched ballistic missiles and deployed multiple aircraft and warships in the past few days to simulate sea and air attacks.
China on Wednesday said it would keep up patrols, but had “completed various tasks” around Taiwan, signaling a possible end to the war games even while keeping up pressure.
Photo: Taiwan Presidential Office
Taiwan has also been conducting relatively small-scale, annual exercises, scheduled before the flare-up and aimed at preparing to repel an invasion.
“At present, the threat of Chinese military force has not decreased,” Tsai told air force officers, according to a statement released by the Presidential Office.
Taiwan will not escalate conflict nor provoke disputes, she was quoted as saying, while adding: “We will firmly defend our sovereignty and national security, and adhere to the line of defense of democracy and freedom.”
Photo:AP
“In the face of China’s recent military provocations, the nation’s armed forces are right on the front lines, and its duties will only be more onerous and the pressure will be even greater,” Tsai added.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed Beijing’s release on Wednesday of a white paper in which it reaffirmed that it would not rule out using force to annex Taiwan.
“We are ready to create vast space for peaceful reunification, but we will leave no room for separatist activities in any form,” said the paper, the first it has issued on Taiwan since 2000.
Photo: Screen grab from the Twitter account of US Senator Gary Peters
Ministry spokeswoman Joanna Ou (歐江安) told a news conference in Taipei that Taiwan has been subjected to incessant provocations from China, including military threats, cyberattacks and the dissemination of misinformation.
The white paper by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office contradicts the reality that Taiwan and China are not subordinate to each other, while betraying Beijing’s intention to break international law by violating the other’s sovereignty, she said.
“Taiwan strongly condemns and protests [the white paper] as a crude piece of political machination,” she said.
“Taiwan’s sovereignty rests with its 23.5 million citizens, who are the sole arbiters of the country’s future,” she said. “This government will never accept any cross-strait framework that was dictated by authoritarian China.”
The surge of militarism and reckless behavior emanating from Beijing is ample proof that China is the true troublemaker and the root cause of instability in the region, she said.
“Taiwan solemnly demands that the Beijing regime cease its threats and lies at once, and that it would do well not to underestimate the Taiwanese will and ability to defend their homeland,” she said.
Meanwhile, Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in an interview on Wednesday that Taiwan would not be cowed by intimidation or surrender its hard-earned democracy to Beijing.
“The people of Taiwan are trying to carry on with our lives,” she told MSNBC News. “We have been seeing such threats from China for decades; this is not new to us.”
“Although the intensity of the recent exercises was truly alarming, we are not letting that affect the way we live our lives and our desire to breathe the air of freedom,” she said.
Beijing’s current strategy is to use “intimidation and coercion” to force Taiwan to accept its terms, which is the “one country, two systems” formula being utilized by the regime in its governance of Hong Kong, she said.
“Unfortunately, we have seen a tragic backslide of basic rights in Hong Kong, the deprivation of the freedom of speech, the freedom of association and the freedom of [the] press,” she said. “That is not what the people of Taiwan want.”
Hsiao called on Taiwan’s friends to stand with the country in opposing the China’s use of military, which harms not only peace in the Taiwan Strait, but around the world.
She also thanked US lawmakers for their bipartisan support of the Taiwan Policy Act.
The proposed legislation would provide Taiwan with effective instruments with which to defend itself and the world from wars of aggression, she said.
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