The US has for the first time held high-level talks with the UK over how they can cooperate more to reduce the likelihood of war with China over Taiwan, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the situation.
US National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell and US National Security Council China and Taiwan Senior Director Laura Rosenberger held a meeting on Taiwan with UK representatives in early March, the newspaper said in a report yesterday.
It quoted “three people familiar with the stepped-up engagement” as saying that the “US wanted to boost cooperation with European allies, such as the UK, to raise awareness about what the administration regards as Beijing’s increasingly assertive attitude toward Taiwan.”
Photo: Reuters
“The US is not engaging the UK because of an imminent threat. The Taiwan dialogue is intended to complement more advanced discussions that the US has been holding with Japan and Australia, as Beijing has stepped up military activity around Taiwan,” it added.
The report quoted a UK official as saying that the meeting was the “highest-level and most significant discussion between the countries on Taiwan to date.”
The report said that the White House would not comment on the matter and that a UK government spokesperson said: “We never comment on private meetings,” but it quoted a Taiwanese official as saying that “Taipei was aware of the US’ efforts to involve more allies in its Taiwan planning.”
Former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia Heino Klinck was quoted by the Financial Times as welcoming the talks.
“Deterring Chinese aggression against Taiwan is in everyone’s interest,” Klinck said. “US military planners are not counting on Germany or France sending warships, or Britain sending a carrier in the case of a conflict over Taiwan. But when those countries send ships to the South China Sea, or transit the Taiwan Strait, it sends a strong signal to China.”
In Taipei, the Ministry of National Defense on Saturday said that two Chinese military aircraft had earlier that day flown into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.
The air force responded by scrambling intercept jets to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets, it said.
The ministry has been publishing information about such flights since September 2020, amid a rising number of intrusions into the ADIZ by the Chinese military.
The largest number of flights in a single day was 56, recorded on Oct. 4 last year, while the highest number this year was 39 on Jan. 23, the ministry said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
RSS