Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani on Tuesday said that his nation is aligned with the EU and NATO in opposing changes to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, after China announced a diplomatic trip to Rome.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday said that Wang Yi (王毅), director of the Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission, would be visiting France, Italy, Hungary and Russia from Tuesday to Wednesday next week.
He is also scheduled to speak at the Munich Security Conference in Germany this weekend, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is likely to attend.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It is Wang’s first overseas trip since assuming China’s top diplomatic position on Jan. 1, following a decade as minister of foreign affairs from 2013 to last year.
Speaking at a forum at Libera Universita Internazionale degli Studi Sociali in Rome on Tuesday, Tajani confirmed that Wang would visit Italy next week, Italian news site Le Formiche reported.
Tajani then issued a message to China, saying that “the status quo must be maintained in the Indo-Pacific; we are committed to this with NATO and the EU.”
“Taipei must remain as it is,” the report quoted him as saying, an apparent reference to China’s aim of unification with Taiwan.
“There must be no temptation to do elsewhere what Russia has done in Ukraine,” he added.
The issue was also raised in a meeting in December last year between Tajani and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, when they declared their “opposition to unilateral efforts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” a US press release at the time said.
In an interview with Le Formiche on Saturday, Italian Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Maria Tripodi said that China “is an issue on the global political agenda.”
“China has progressively tightened its grip on Taiwan through exercises in the neighboring air and sea space,” Tripodi said. “Combined with increasing investments in the Pacific area, penetrating into European ports and the Horn of Africa, all of this cannot but generate concern in neighboring countries.”
Wang likely has two goals in visiting Rome next week, Le Formiche reported.
The first is to set the groundwork for a potential visit to Beijing by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was invited by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia in November last year, it said.
Wang is also likely to pursue the extension of a Belt and Road Initiative agreement with Italy, which is to expire in March next year, it said.
If no action is taken by either side by the end of this year, the agreement is to renew automatically.
In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) quoted the Taiwanese song One Small Umbrella (一支小雨傘) to describe his nation’s situation. Wong’s use of such a song shows Singapore’s familiarity with Taiwan’s culture and is a perfect reflection of exchanges between the two nations, Representative to Singapore Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said yesterday in a post on Facebook. Wong quoted the song, saying: “As the rain gets heavier, I will take care of you, and you,” in Mandarin, using it as a metaphor for Singaporeans coming together to face challenges. Other Singaporean politicians have also used Taiwanese songs
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
CLAMPING DOWN: At the preliminary stage on Jan. 1 next year, only core personnel of the military, the civil service and public schools would be subject to inspections Regular checks are to be conducted from next year to clamp down on military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers with Chinese citizenship or Chinese household registration, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. Article 9-1 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) stipulates that Taiwanese who obtain Chinese household registration or a Chinese passport would be deprived of their Taiwanese citizenship and lose their right to work in the military, public service or public schools, it said. To identify and prevent the illegal employment of holders of Chinese ID cards or
RSS