Taiwan yesterday hailed France’s pledge to safeguard freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait a day after French President Emmanuel Macron signed into law the nation’s largest defense budget increase in more than 50 years.
The French Parliament on July 12 and 13 passed a 413 billion euros (US$453 billion) defense budget for the next seven years, which would push France’s military spending to more than 2 percent of GDP by 2025.
The budget bill — which was spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s aggressive stance in Asia — said that France is an Indo-Pacific power, and has an obligation to defend freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
Photo: AFP
As the only EU member with territories in the Indo-Pacific, France has a duty to uphold the rights of all nations to freely use the seas in the region, French Senator Olivier Cadic, one of the bill sponsors, said during deliberations.
Beijing’s provocative actions — including its efforts to seize international seas as its own, its harassment of legal fishing operations, construction of military bases and incursions into other nations’ sovereign waters — are to blame for the surge in regional tensions in the past few years, Cadic said.
China not only turned a deaf ear to the rulings of international courts with regard to its claims in the South China Sea, but also claims the Taiwan Strait, which poses a direct threat to global trade and maritime transportation, he said.
Beijing’s predatory acts and ever-growing military power means that a move by China to invade Taiwan would trigger a significant crisis, comparable to the Russa-Ukraine war, Cadic said, urging France to contribute to protecting freedom of navigation at sea.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Paris has significant influence over the Indo-Pacific region, and reiterated the importance of preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait at this year’s G7 summit and other multilateral international events.
The French government’s defense budget indicates a recognition that protecting peace in the Taiwan Strait is aligned with its strategic national interests, and is essential to a free, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region, the ministry said.
Taiwan would continue to work with France and other like-minded countries to defend the rules-based international order, it said.
Separately, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said the defense budget’s reference to security in the Strait was a first in French law and was a declaration of intent.
The alliance of democracies has reached a consensus that it should maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, as regional unrest would have global repercussions to the shared interests of its members, Wang said.
DPP Legislator Tsai Shih-ying (蔡適應) thanked the French parliament for passing the bill, adding that a military crisis between Taiwan and China would have unbearable consequences for the world.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would