While Taiwan attempts to maintain the cross-strait status quo, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) acts as a “troublemaker” seeking to alter that status quo, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen Yu-chung (沈有忠) said today at a conference in Taichung.
Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is in the shared interest of the global community, he said, despite recent threatening messages from the CCP and Beijing’s distortion of international narratives.
Photo courtesy of the Mainland Affairs Council
Shen today attended the 2025 International Seminar on Mercantilism Returns to International Politics: Tariffs, War, AI, and Great Power Competition, which opened this morning at Tunghai University in Taichung.
Global attention on cross-strait affairs has been mounting in recent years, with many democratic countries speaking out on behalf of Taiwan and the importance of maintaining regional peace and stability, he said.
China uses various tactics to promote the “one China principle,” including the “three 80th anniversaries” — as this year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese people’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (as China refers to the Second Sino-Japanese War), the UN’s 80th anniversary and the 80th anniversary of the retrocession of Taiwan — he said.
It also willfully misinterprets UN Resolution 2758, passed in 1971, which states that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the only legitimate government of China, which enabled it to replace the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan’s official name, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, he added.
However, Resolution 2758 has no bearing on Taiwan’s sovereign status or international position, he added.
He thanked democratic nations for using diplomatic relations or parliamentary meetings to refute the CCP's distortion of the resolution to silence Taiwan and block its meaningful participation in international organizations.
Calls from the international community, however, remain unacknowledged by China as it continues to use threatening rhetoric towards countries that are friendly to Taipei, he said.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sparked a diplomatic row with Beijing with remarks in parliament last week that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could amount to a "survival-threatening situation" and trigger a military response from Tokyo.
China's top diplomat in Osaka shared a news article about Takaichi's remarks about Taiwan on X and commented "the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off", prompting a protest from Japan's government.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said that Japan should “deeply reflect on history, draw lessons from history, strictly adhere to the one-China principle... and exercise extreme caution when handling Taiwan-related matters,” China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
Moreover, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim's (蕭美琴) spoke at the European Parliament in Brussels on Friday while the annual Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) summit was being held.
Chen then smeared IPAC as “merely a clique of anti-China elements,” Chinese state media China Daily reported.
The CCP has no intention of engaging in dialogue with Taiwan’s democratically elected government, Shen added.
Beijing further promotes its claim to the international community that issues surrounding Taiwan are an “internal matter,” he said.
Shen called on all parts of society to assess cross-strait dynamics objectively and uphold national sovereignty, security and democratic values.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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