Taiwan intends to fight for itself in any armed conflict with China and is unclear as to what countries might stand beside it, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu said (吳釗燮).
In an interview on Friday last week with Sky News Australia, Wu said that Taiwan, with a population of 23 million compared to China’s 1.4 billion, has to defend itself and is not asking other countries to fight for it.
Regarding who might fight alongside Taiwan in the event of a war with China, Wu said: “This is a very good question.”
Photo: CNA
“A lot of people are debating strategic ambiguity or strategic clarity, but to us, we know our own responsibility,” Wu told the news channel from Taipei.
“Taiwan has to defend itself, the people have to defend Taiwan, this country, and we are determined to defend ourselves and we are not asking other countries to fight for Taiwan,” he said.
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly said that US forces would help defend Taiwan, although US official policy remains ambiguous over if and how forces would be dispatched.
Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles in March said that his country had made no promise to support the US in any conflict over Taiwan as part of an agreement to obtain US nuclear-powered submarines.
Biden and the leaders of Australia and the UK have announced that Australia would purchase nuclear-powered attack submarines from the US to modernize its fleet, amid growing concern about China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australian critics of the deal say that the US would not hand over as many as five of its Virginia-class submarines without assurances that they would be made available in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan.
Asked if Taiwan was destined for war, Wu said: “I certainly hope not.”
“The reason is very clear: War means devastation, not just for the one who got attacked, but possibly also for other countries as well,” he said.
“And therefore, at this moment, even though we see that the tension has been rising and the conflict seems to be more likely and peace is less likely to maintain, but we need to do everything to prevent war from happening,” he said.
Wu said that Taiwan is working to maintain the “status quo” — essentially de facto independence without a formal declaration.
The US remains Taiwan’s closest military and political ally, despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties between them. US defense officials have warned of the potential of conflict in coming years and US forces have been bolstering their presence in Asia, most recently in the Philippines, to respond to such a contingency.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
RSS