Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday dismissed concern that the US might use ties with Taiwan as leverage in US President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.
Wu told Bloomberg Television that he was confident the US’ support for Taiwan would not be affected by the ups and downs in relations between the US and China.
“We understand Washington DC’s support of Taiwan continues to be very strong,” Wu said in Taipei. “Taiwan is a positive element in the US economy and I just don’t worry that Taiwan is going to become a chip to be negotiated with by the US.”
Photo: Bloomberg
Wu’s remarks followed a fresh diplomatic blow to Taiwan, after the Central American nation of El Salvador cut ties with Taipei and switched its recognition to Beijing. The departure left Taiwan with just 17 formal diplomatic partners, as the Chinese Communist Party worked to further isolate President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
The White House has said that El Salvador’s decision to cut ties with Taiwan would prompt the US to re-evaluate its relationship with the Central American nation.
Wu said he was concerned that China’s influence would continue to expand in Central America, a bastion of Taiwanese support.
“China has been expanding its influence everywhere in the world. And Central America is America’s backyard,” Wu said. “Without any force stopping it, I think China’s influence will continue to expand.”
The US has maintained informal relations with Taiwan and provides the nation with military support, despite switching relations to Beijing in 1979.
The Trump administration and the US Congress this year approved a measures to expand ties with Taiwan, including a law that would allow high-level visits by US diplomats.
“Our support from the US is stronger than ever before,” Wu said. “Our support from Japan and other like-minded countries is stronger than ever before as well.”
Wu said that the government was watching closely China’s efforts to boost ties with the Vatican, which recognizes Taipei amid a longstanding dispute with Beijing over bishop appointments.
While Wu expressed support for efforts to improve the lives of Chinese Catholics, he said Taiwan was concerned about “a continuous deterioration of the situation in China with regard to religious freedom.”
“There are more and more Catholics in China that are being persecuted,” Wu said.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
China is likely to focus on its economy over the next four years and not set a timetable for attempting to annex Taiwan, a researcher at Beijing’s Tsinghua University wrote in an article published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Friday. In the article titled “Why China isn’t scared of Trump: US-Chinese tensions may rise, but his isolationism will help Beijing,” Chinese international studies researcher Yan Xuetong (閻學通) wrote that the US and China are unlikely to go to war over Taiwan in the next four years under US president-elect Donald Trump. While economic and military tensions between the US and China would
RSS