Wed, Jun 15, 2022 page3

• Ministry pans falsehoods from Moscow

  DISTORTED VIEW: A Russian media outlet later denied ever publishing an article in which a Russian official repeated Beijing’s statement on Taiwan being part of China

  • By Lu Yi-hsuan and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday condemned “untruthful statements” from Moscow two days after Russian First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko seems to have described Taiwan as a “non-negotiable” part of China.

  Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) made the comment at a routine news briefing in Taipei, adding: “Taiwan and China are two mutually non-subordinating governments.”

  An article published on Sunday commemorating Russia Day in the Russian newspaper Izvestia, seemingly written by Kiriyenko, first deputy chief of staff to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that “the Chinese Taiwan problem is not a negotiable issue.”

  The Multimedia Information Center Izvestia, which oversees the newspaper and other Izvestia outlets, on Monday denied ever publishing the article, saying it was the result of a hacker attack, Deutsche Welle reported.

  The article has since been removed from the paper’s Web site.

  Drawing a comparison between the Russia-Ukraine war to China’s claims over Taiwan, as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claims over islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the article expressed support for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) Global Security Initiative, saying the West should “stop interfering with the internal affairs of other peoples and governments.”

  The creation of a US-led military alliance in the Indo-Pacific region is a threat to Russia’s national security, it added.

  The Institute for the Study of War, a nonprofit policy research organization, said the article was likely published early by mistake.

  The outlet probably had the story in reserve and intended to use it when Russia has annexed the Donbas region, it said.

  It also cited Kremlin sources as saying that Kiriyenko has been tapped to lead the Russian district that would encompass Donbas and other occupied regions.

  Ou condemned the “distortion of facts and insult to Taiwanese sovereignty,” saying that “the Chinese government has never ruled Taiwan and only a government elected by Taiwanese can be the legitimate representative of that people in international relations.”

  “Beijing’s efforts to spread the fictitious narrative that Taiwan is part of China and its campaign of intimation through the deployment of warplanes and warships only deepens the antipathy of the Taiwanese,” she added.

  Already, Beijing’s actions have raised alarm and drawn condemnation from Japan, the US and the EU while causing heightened awareness of the threat China represents to freedom and peace, she said.

  Taiwan continues to safeguard freedom and democracy as the most crucial asset in its opposition to China’s totalitarian regime, she said.

  “This government calls on like-minded international partners to join forces in defending the shared values of freedom and democracy from the Sino-Russian authoritarian alliance, which poses a grave threat to global freedoms and peace,” she said.
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