The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday condemned China for bullying the Kuwait-based English-language Arab Times into deleting from its Web site an already published interview with Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮).
The Arab Times features diversified perspectives and is influential among the decisionmaking elite in Arab nations, the ministry said in a statement on Monday that touted the interview.
Wu was interviewed by Abdulaziz Mohammed al-Anjeri, cofounder and chief executive of Kuwaiti think tank Reconnaissance Research via videoconference on Wednesday last week, with the article published on Sunday, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
In the interview, Wu talked about the threat China poses to the Indo-Pacific region, the progress of Taiwan-US relations, as well as opportunities for Taiwan to expand ties with Middle East nations, the ministry said.
However, the newspaper was found to have deleted the interview yesterday and published a statement from the Chinese embassy in Kuwait.
Describing Wu as a “stubborn ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist,” the embassy condemned “the despicable acts of Taiwan independence separatists to deliberately distort the history of Taiwan, viciously attack the Chinese government and mislead public opinion.”
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
“There is only one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. This is a basic fact universally recognized by the international community,” the embassy’s statement said.
“Over the years, the Chinese government has rolled out multiple measures and policies to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and safeguard the well-being of people across the Taiwan Strait,” it said.
The embassy demanded that Kuwaiti media “stay alert to attempts of the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces and refuse to do anything that hurts the feelings of 1.4 billion Chinese people or the friendship between China and Kuwait.”
It is extremely regrettable that the Arab Times decided to delete the interview, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said yesterday.
The ministry condemns the Chinese government for its meddling with another nation’s freedom of the press and its attempts to silence Taiwan, she said.
The Chinese Communist Party regime demonstrates its barbaric nature when it attempts to force other sovereign nations into accepting its unilateral positions based on its fictional “one China” principle, she added.
Taiwan is Taiwan, and it has never been under the jurisdiction of the Chinese government, Ou said.
The Taiwanese government and its people would continue to defend democracy, the rule of law, freedom of the press and free speech, she said, calling on the international community to resist China’s bullying with courage and determination.
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
RSS