An Iranian newspaper on Saturday said that Taiwan has a “legal right” to independence, in an apparent reaction to China siding with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in a diplomatic row over three islands in the Strait of Hormuz that Iran also claims.
The Arman Daily’s front page story, titled “Taiwan Independence: A Legal Right,” said Beijing would have to accept Taiwan’s independence despite attempts to suppress it by force.
The article gained international attention after Iranian commentator Maysam Bizaer posted about it on Twitter.
Photo: screen grab from the Arman Daily Web site
It came after a joint statement of the 2022 China-Arab States Summit said that participants “affirmed their support for all peaceful efforts, including the initiative and endeavors of the United Arab Emirates ... to reach a peaceful solution to the issue of the three islands; Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa, through bilateral negotiations in accordance with the rules of international law, and to resolve this issue in accordance with international legitimacy.”
The then-Imperial Iranian Navy seized the islands in November 1971 after the British Royal Navy stopped patrolling near them, sparking a decades-long territorial dispute between Iran and the UAE.
In Iran, the joint statement was widely perceived as a slight, drawing a diplomatic protest from Tehran and condemnations in the Iranian press.
Bizaer’s Twitter post cited several headlines in Iranian newspapers, including “China Against Iran,” “What’s China’s Plans for Middle East,” “The Chinese Shock” and “China’s Not-So-Friendly Message for Iran.”
Taiwanese online commentator Emmy Hu (胡采蘋) on Tuesday shared Bizaer’s tweet on Facebook, saying: “Something must have happened for us to win prizes while lying down.”
“All of this is because the Arabs laid claim to three of Iran’s islands and then China backed this claim by playing dumb to ingratiate itself with the Saudis, pissing off Iran,” she said, apparently confusing the UAE with Saudi Arabia.
“Kudos to Daddy Xi for making the world more and more pro Taiwanese independence,” she wrote, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
Tehran viewed Beijing’s joint statement with the Arab states as “a betrayal,” Hu wrote in her post, which received 3,500 mostly positive responses from Facebook users.
“The boat of [Sino-Iranian] friendship sure capsized quick,” one comment read.
Meanwhile, Beijing on Tuesday sent Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua (胡春華), who was recently removed from the top echelons of power, to meet Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a sign that Beijing is keeping its distance from the Middle Eastern nation as it deals with widespread unrest.
Hu told Iranian officials that China “will not waver in its determination to develop their comprehensive strategic partnership,” the official Xinhua news agency reported.
“China firmly supports Iran in opposing external interference and safeguarding its sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity,” it cited Hu as saying.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
‘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
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
RSS