The leaders of Japan, South Korea and the US on Friday reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait following a historic summit at Camp David in Maryland.
“Today, we’ve reaffirmed — all reaffirmed our shared commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” US President Joe Biden told a news conference after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.
The first-ever standalone summit between Biden, Kishida and Yoon focused on expanding security, economic and technology ties between the three countries.
Photo: AP
The three countries agreed to engage in annual multi-domain military exercises, improve their information sharing and boost ballistic missile defense cooperation, Biden said.
He said they would establish a communications hotline to discuss responses to threats, while the leaders also agreed to share real-time data on North Korea and to hold summits every year.
“Our countries are stronger and the world will be safer as we stand together, and I know this is a belief that all three share,” Biden said, praising the “political courage” of Kishida and Yoon in turning the page on historical animosity.
Three documents were issued after the meeting: the Commitment to Consult, the Camp David Principles and the Spirit of Camp David.
“We reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of security and prosperity in the international community,” the latter two state.
“Recognizing that there is no change in our basic positions on Taiwan, we call for a peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues,” the Camp David Principles say, while the Spirit of Camp David reiterates the point.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a news release yesterday thanked the three governments for expressing concern about the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan remains committed to working with like-minded partners to foster peace, stability and prosperity within the region, it said.
“The purpose of our trilateral security cooperation is and will remain to promote and enhance peace and stability throughout the region,” Biden, Kishida and Yoon said in a joint statement.
Biden maintained, as have US, South Korean and Japanese officials, that the summit “was not about China,” but was focused on broader security issues.
Yet, the leaders in their concluding statement noted China’s “dangerous and aggressive” action in the South China Sea, and said they “strongly oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the waters of the Indo-Pacific.”
Yoon noted in particular the threat posed by North Korea, saying the three leaders had agreed to improve “our joint response capabilities to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, which have become sophisticated more than ever.”
He said as the three appeared before reporters that “today will be remembered as a historic day, where we established a firm institutional basis and commitments to the trilateral partnership.”
Japan’s Kishida said before the talks that “the fact that we, the three leaders, have got together in this way, I believe means that we are indeed making a new history as of today. The international community is at a turning point in history.”
The visitors spoke in their home languages, using translators.
Additional reporting by AFP
‘FORM OF PROTEST’: The German Institute Taipei said it was ‘shocked’ to see Nazi symbolism used in connection with political aims as it condemned the incident Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), who led efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), was released on bail of NT$80,000 yesterday amid an outcry over a Nazi armband he wore to questioning the night before. Sung arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning in a recall petition forgery case on Tuesday night wearing a red armband bearing a swastika, carrying a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and giving a Nazi salute. Sung left the building at 1:15am without the armband and apparently covering the book with a coat. This is a serious international scandal and Chinese
PERSONAL DATA: The implicated KMT members allegedly compiled their petitions by copying names from party lists without the consent of the people concerned Judicial authorities searched six locations yesterday and questioned six people, including one elderly Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member and five KMT Youth League associates, about alleged signature forgery and fraud relating to their recall efforts against two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators. After launching a probe into alleged signature forgery and related fraud in the KMT’s recall effort, prosecutors received a number of complaints, including about one petition that had 1,748 signatures of voters whose family members said they had already passed away, and also voters who said they did not approve the use of their name, Taipei Deputy Chief Prosecutor
UNDER ATTACK: Raymond Greene said there were 412 billion malicious threats in the Asia-Pacific region in the first half of 2023, with 55 percent targeting Taiwan Taiwan not only faces military intimidation from China, but is also on the front line of global cybersecurity threats, and it is taking action to counter those attacks, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Speaking at the opening of this year’s Cybersec Expo in Taipei, the president assured foreign diplomats and exhibitors that Taiwan remained committed to strengthening its defense against cyberattacks and enhancing the resilience of its digital infrastructure. Lai referenced a report from the National Security Bureau (NSB) indicating that the Government Service Network faced an average of 2.4 million intrusion attempts daily last year, more than double the figure
COUNTERINTELLIGENCE TRAINING: The ministry said 87.5 percent of the apprehended Chinese agents were reported by service members they tried to lure into becoming spies Taiwanese organized crime, illegal money lenders, temples and civic groups are complicit in Beijing’s infiltration of the armed forces, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said in a report yesterday. Retired service members who had been turned to Beijing’s cause mainly relied on those channels to infiltrate the Taiwanese military, according to the report to be submitted to lawmakers ahead of tomorrow’s hearing on Chinese espionage in the military. Chinese intelligence typically used blackmail, Internet-based communications, bribery or debts to loan sharks to leverage active service personnel to do its bidding, it said. China’s main goals are to collect intelligence, and develop a
RSS