The outgoing Canadian representative to Taiwan has underscored the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and said that Canada would continue to “stand with Taiwan.”
Canada is concerned about Taiwan’s security in part because “our trade and investment ties are growing strategically,” Canadian Trade Office in Taipei Executive Director Jordan Reeves said in an interview on Thursday.
“We cannot have a shared prosperity in the Indo-Pacific if we have a conflict here in the Taiwan Strait,” Reeves said, adding that peace and stability across the Strait is “extremely important” to Canada.
Photo: CNA
Reeves said Canada and fellow G7 nations have “growing concerns” about China’s aggressive actions in the Taiwan Strait.
Canada has voiced strong opposition to unilateral actions that would change the “status quo” in the region, he said, adding that his country “stands with Taiwan as a friend and will continue to do so.”
Reeves’ comments reflect a joint statement from the G7 foreign ministers and the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy that was issued on Aug. 3, the day before China began large-scale military exercises around Taiwan in response to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the nation.
Photo : grab from Michael Aastrup Jensen FB
The statement called on China “not to unilaterally change the status quo by force in the region,” and reaffirmed a “shared and steadfast commitment to maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
Reeves said that he was “quite happy” and “relieved” about reports that a delegation of Canadian lawmakers was planning to visit Taiwan in October, without confirming whether the trip would go ahead.
It is “normal and routine for our legislators to travel internationally” to promote people-to-people ties, and trade and investment relations, Reeves said.
He added that there was no justification to use a visit like this as a pretext for aggressive military activity in the Taiwan Strait.
Separately, Danish media have reported that a delegation of lawmakers from six political parties would visit Taiwan after general elections in Denmark this fall.
“What Taiwan needs now is our full support. We need to stand by that. Of course, Taiwan should not be isolated, as China wants it to be. They should not get away with that,” Michael Aastrup Jensen, foreign policy spokesman for the liberal Venstre party, was quoted by Politiken as saying.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, who arrived in Tawian yesterday for three days.
Two leaders of a Japanese parliamentary group promoting Taiwan-Japan ties are to visit Taiwan today.
During their three-day stay, Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council Chairman Keiji Furuya and council Secretary-General Minoru Kihara are to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other top officials.
Additional reporting by Yang Cheng-yu
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