US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday warned China against taking any “provocative” action on Taiwan after Beijing’s reaction to President William Lai’s (賴清德) speech on Double Ten National Day on Thursday.
Blinken, speaking in Laos after an ASEAN East Asia Summit, called the speech by Lai, in which he vowed to “resist annexation,” a “regular exercise.”
“China should not use it in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions,” Blinken told reporters. “On the contrary, we want to reinforce — and many other countries want to reinforce — the imperative of preserving the status quo, and neither party taking any actions that might undermine it.”
Photo: AFP
“Fifty percent of commercial container traffic goes through the Taiwan Strait every day; more than 70 percent of the high-end semiconductors that the world needs are produced on Taiwan, so there’s a strong interest around the world on maintaining peace and stability, preserving the status quo, avoiding any kind of conflict that could disrupt things that are so essential to the global economy,” he said.
In Taipei on Thursday morning, Lai said at the nation’s main National Day event that the Republic of China (ROC) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) not being subordinate to each other is an objective fact and the “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait.
He also said that Taiwan is willing to work with China to address climate change, prevent infectious diseases and maintain regional security in pursuit of peace and shared prosperity that would benefit people on both sides.
Former American Institute in Taiwan chair Richard Bush described Lai’s speech as “moderate,” as it did not say much about the PRC military and coercive threats.
However, Bush said he worried that Beijing would not have a positive response based on its “united front” logic and its mistrust of Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party.
Former US National Security Council director for China Rush Doshi on Thursday wrote on X that “Lai has taken a step toward stability.”
“So the question now is whether Beijing wants to respond with escalation or its own restraint,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) urged Beijing to understand the goodwill in Lai’s speech and face mainstream public opinion in Taiwan.
“The so-called one China principle proposed by the Chinese Communist Party does not leave room for the survival of the ROC and has been firmly rejected by the Taiwanese people,” the MAC said.
In line with Lai reaffirming his hope for the resumption of equal, healthy and orderly exchanges between the two sides, Taipei has taken several measures to promote cross-strait exchanges, including providing assistance to Chinese officials and businesses to attend July’s cross-strait summer travel expo in Taipei, it said.
Earlier on Thursday, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) said that Lai had tried to “sell the fallacy of Taiwan independence,” and accused him of revealing “his pernicious intention to escalate tensions across the Taiwan Strait for political gain.”
“Lai’s speech deliberately seeks to sever the historical connection between the two sides of the strait and reiterated the rhetoric of mutual non-subordination and insisting on sovereignty,” Mao said.
The “one China” principle says that Taiwan is an indivisible part of China’s territory, she said.
“No matter what Lai’s administration says or does, it cannot change the objective fact that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China,” she added.
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) yesterday released the first video documenting the submerged sea trials of Taiwan’s indigenous defense submarine prototype, the Hai Kun (海鯤), or Narwhal, showing underwater navigation and the launch of countermeasures. The footage shows the vessel’s first dive, steering and control system tests, and the raising and lowering of the periscope and antenna masts. It offered a rare look at the progress in the submarine’s sea acceptance tests. The Hai Kun carried out its first shallow-water diving trial late last month and has since completed four submerged tests, CSBC said. The newly released video compiles images recorded from Jan. 29 to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to make advanced 3-nanometer chips in Japan, stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing roadmap in the country in a triumph for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s technology ambitions. TSMC is to adopt cutting-edge technology for its second wafer fab in Kumamoto, company chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. That is an upgrade from an original blueprint to produce 7-nanometer chips by late next year, people familiar with the matter said. TSMC began mass production at its first plant in Japan’s Kumamoto in late 2024. Its second fab, which is still under construction, was originally focused on
DETERRENCE EFFORTS: Washington and partners hope demonstrations of force would convince Beijing that military action against Taiwan would carry high costs The US is considering using HMAS Stirling in Western Australia as a forward base to strengthen its naval posture in a potential conflict with China, particularly over Taiwan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, Washington plans to deploy up to four nuclear-powered submarines at Stirling starting in 2027, providing a base near potential hot spots such as Taiwan and the South China Sea. The move also aims to enhance military integration with Pacific allies under the Australia-UK-US trilateral security partnership, the report said. Currently, US submarines operate from Guam, but the island could
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS