China has called on the US to “correct its mistake” after US President Donald Trump approved new rules allowing top-level US officials to travel to Taiwan to meet with their Taiwanese counterparts.
US representatives can already travel to Taiwan and Taiwanese officials occasionally visit the White House, but meetings are usually low profile to avoid offending China.
The Taiwan Travel Act, which Trump signed on Friday following its passage in the US Congress, encourages visits between Taiwanese and US officials “at all levels.”
Photo: AFP
Washington cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 in favor of Beijing under its “one China” policy, but it maintains trade relations with Taiwan and sells it weapons.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang (陸慷) said the act’s clauses, while not legally binding, “severely violate” Beijing’s “one China” principle and send “very wrong signals to the ‘pro-independence’ separatist forces in Taiwan.”
“China is strongly opposed to that,” Lu said in a statement issued on Saturday.
“We urge the US side to correct its mistake, stop pursuing any official ties with Taiwan or improving its current relations with Taiwan in any substantive way,” he said.
In a separate statement, Chinese Ministry of National Defense spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) said the act “interferes in China’s internal affairs.”
China urges the US to “stop pursuing any US-Taiwan military ties and stop arms sales to Taiwan, so as to avoid causing serious damage to the bilateral and military relations between China and the US, and to the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Wu’s statement said.
The act describes Taiwan as “a beacon of democracy” in Asia, and states that “Taiwan’s democratic achievements inspire many countries and people in the region.”
Trump’s signature, announced late on Friday — when the White House usually tries to bury news — comes amid increasing tensions between Taiwan and China.
The new US law also comes amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing as Trump mulls fresh tariff measures that have raised fears of a tit-for-tat trade war.
As eight basketball-playing international students appealed to the Taiwanese basketball industry after they were excluded from the draft of an upcoming new league merging the P.League+ and the T1 League, the new league’s preparatory committee spokesperson Chang Shu-jen (張樹人) yesterday said the committee would tomorrow discuss the supplementary measures and whether the international students can join the draft. The students on Tuesday called for support on their right to play in the upcoming new league, after a merger involving the two leagues impacted their eligibility for the draft. The international players from the University Basketball Association (UBA), led by first pick prospect
WARNING: China has stepped up harassment of foreign vessels after its new regulation took effect last month, an official said, citing an incident in the Diaoyutai Islands The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday linked China’s seizure of a Taiwanese fishing vessel illegally operating in its territorial waters to Beijing’s new regulation authorizing the China Coast Guard to seize boats in waters it claims. Chinese officials boarded and then seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel operating near China’s coast close to Kinmen County late on Tuesday and took it to a Chinese port, the CGA said. The Penghu-registered squid fishing vessel Da Jin Man No. 88 (大進滿88) was boarded and seized by China Coast Guard east-northeast of Liaoluo Bay (料羅灣), 17.5 nautical miles (32.4km) from Taiwan’s restricted waters off Kinmen,
Some foreign companies are considering moving Taiwanese employees out of China after Beijing said it could impose the death penalty on “die-hard” Taiwanese independence advocates, four people familiar with the matter said. The new guidelines have caused some Taiwanese expatriates and foreign multinationals operating in China to scramble to assess their legal risks and exposure, said the people, who include a lawyer and two executives with direct knowledge of the discussions. “Several companies have come to us to assess the risks to their personnel,” said the lawyer, James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based partner at the Perkins Coie law firm. He declined to identify
BOLSTERING DEFENSE: The explosive is 40 percent more powerful than those in use and could be deployed for Hsiung Feng II and III missiles, a government source said The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has developed a polycyclic nitroamine explosive, commonly known as CL-20, which is the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known, a government source said yesterday on condition of anonymity. The institute has significantly improved explosive and rocket propellant research and development in recent years, the source said. A new factory was established in June 2022 with NT$540 million (US$16.6 million) in equipment installed, the source said. A central complex that would house 50-gallon (189 liters) and 300-gallon (1,136 liters) explosive mixer machines, as well as a storage device, was constructed in the factory, the institute said. The explosive is