The British Royal Navy has a right to transit through the Taiwan Strait, British Secretary of Defence Grant Shapps said yesterday, shortly after announcing that a carrier strike group would sail there.
Speaking in an interview with British newspaper the Times, Shapps said that international law protects freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait, but added that the path of the British warships had yet not been decided.
The carrier strike group, consisting of one aircraft carrier and escort ships, is to visit Japan as part of the flagship 2025 Indo-Pacific deployment, the British Ministry of Defence said in a news release.
Photo: EPA-EFE / MOD / CROWN COPYRIGHT
“The strength and global reach of the UK’s armed forces should never be underestimated,” Shapps was quoted as saying. “The carrier strike group 2025 is another tangible example of our ability to deploy globally.”
“Such deployments send a strong deterrence message while presenting important opportunities for engagements with key partners,” he said.
The carrier strike group represents a concentration of “cutting-edge air, surface and underwater defense” capabilities, but is also “a focal point for worldwide democratic activity,” the ministry said.
Separately yesterday, Representative to the US Alexander Yui called on the West to “not look the other way” in responding to a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
“The best defense, best help that you can do for Taiwan ... is by actively, openly voicing your concerns that you will not accept Chinese aggression towards Taiwan,” Yui said in an interview with Politico.
Faced with a belligerent China that is preparing “very seriously to have the ability to invade Taiwan,” the nation has opted to “increase defense capabilities” in a bid to defeat “any possible aggressions in the future,” he said.
Drawing a parallel with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yui said the ongoing war “is a mirror to Taiwan,” which is also “facing an attack from a much larger country.”
Taiwan is seeking to improve its defensive capabilities as Kyiv did following Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea and part of the Donbas region in 2014, he said.
“So the threats are there and we want to preserve our way of life,” Yui said. “We want to preserve our democracy. We want to preserve liberties, and we will defend it.”
Beijing is expected to put immense pressure on Taiwan from the elections on Jan. 13 to the presidential inauguration in May to force the president-elect to make concessions to placate China in their inaugural speech, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the