The US needs to maintain security and ensure the peaceful resolution of disputes in the Pacific region, as a cross-strait crisis would be “bad for the entire world,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday.
Blinken was asked in an interview on Canadian television channel TVA Montreal if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised concerns in Washington about the risk of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
“It is a worry to us because ... [we] are seeing more repression in China and more aggression on the outside, including on Taiwan,” Blinken said.
Photo: REUTERS
Taiwan’s 50 years of success — made possible by the peace and stability that prevail in the region — could be jeopardized by an increasingly assertive Beijing, he said.
“Maritime trade in that area represents 50 percent of global trade every day,” he added.
Most of the world’s smartphones and other devices use semiconductors made in Taiwan, he said.
As a crisis in Taiwan “will be bad for the entire world,” the US must “maintain security ... [and] resolve issues” in the Pacific region peacefully, he said.
The US top diplomat has in the past few weeks issued a series of warnings about the risk of war in the Taiwan Strait.
Speaking at Stanford University on Monday last week, Blinken said that Beijing plans to annex Taiwan on a “much faster timeline” and has decided that the “status quo” is no longer acceptable.
He reiterated the statement two days later at a US Department of State news conference.
Separately, Lieutenant General James Jarrard, deputy commanding general for the US Army Pacific, at a teleconference hosted by the Pentagon on Thursday said that the US is “doing everything we can to prevent and deter tensions from escalating into a crisis or even a conflict” between Taiwan and China.
The US is working with its allies and partners toward preserving “a peaceful environment” in the Indo-Pacific region, he said.
Jarrard refused to comment on the likelihood of Taiwan participating as an observer in the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Capability (JPMRC) exercise taking place in Hawaii from tomorrow to Nov. 9.
“We are continuing to provide assistance to Taiwan, just like we have done previously, and want to make sure that we are doing what we can to help them maintain the status quo, just as our senior civilian leaders have directed us to,” he said.
JPMRC rotation 23-01 is a multinational exercise involving the US Army’s 25th Infantry Division, 354 participants from the armies of Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, and observers from 12 countries.
The drills at the newly established Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center are designed to improve the readiness and capabilities of US and allied forces when conducting joint operations on archipelago and jungle terrain common to the region, the US Army Pacific said.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS