The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday criticized Beijing’s embassy in Seoul over “despicable” comments protesting a visit of a delegation to Taiwan last week led by South Korean National Assembly Deputy Speaker Chung Woo-taik.
In a post on WeChat, an embassy spokesperson said that the lawmakers’ visit contravenes the “one China” principle and harms the development of friendly relations between China and South Korea.
When referring to the visit, the spokesperson used the derogatory term cuan fang (竄訪), which equates the lawmakers to rats “scurrying” around. Beijing had used the term before when discussing then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year.
Photo from South Korean lawmaker Lee Dal-gon’s Facebook page
The spokesperson also said “Taiwan independence secessionist forces” and meddling by foreign forces were threatening stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan “solemnly censures” the Chinese ambassador in South Korea, who made comments that “seriously distorted facts and infringed on the dignity of South Korea and our country’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
“China’s overturning of right and wrong, its uncouth language and its wolf warrior behavior can only be described as despicable,” the statement said.
Taipei’s reception of foreign guests, including major political figures and lawmakers, is “an exercise of national sovereignty and a normal activity of democracies,” it said.
The international community agrees that Taiwan and China are non-subordinate, sovereign nations, and that the People’s Republic of China has never governed Taiwan, the ministry said.
Taiwan and South Korea are democratic, sovereign countries, and Seoul has the right to conduct relations with any foreign nation it wishes, including Taiwan, it added.
The statement said that Beijing’s complaints are baseless, as the South Korea-Taiwan Friendship Association had visited the nation every year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and thanked the visiting lawmakers for their significant contributions to bilateral relations.
Taiwan and South Korea share the universal values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, and have close ties in matters of substance including trade and mutual visits, it said.
The statement also said that Seoul declared the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait in 2020, and has often repeated that message since, including in last month’s publication of its strategic document for the Indo-Pacific region.
“Again, the Chinese government did not heed facts and acted in bad faith in its futile attempt to impede Taiwan’s conduct of normal relations with the rest of the world,” it said, calling for democratic countries to support Taiwan.
“China should stop its presumptuous behavior toward South Korea’s parliamentarian diplomacy,” South Korean lawmaker Cho Kyoung-tae said.
Beijing’s actions were “not the behavior of a normal country,” the Korea Times cited him as saying. “Interference into domestic affairs should not occur.”
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told a ribbon-cutting ceremony in New Taipei City that Beijing’s interference in Taiwan’s affairs makes China “a bad neighbor, always meddling and trying to start arguments.”
“The world judges China on its unneighborly behavior,” he added.
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS