“Taiwan has never been a problem, but rather it provides solutions,” and is working with international partners to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and the Taiwan Strait, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Ministry spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) made the remarks in response to a reporter’s comment on changes in relations between Japan and China over the “Taiwan issue or the so-called Taiwan problem.”
“I must explain first that Taiwan has never been a ‘problem,’ but rather a solution,” Hsiao said at a weekly news conference in Taipei.
Photo: screen grab from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs livestream
Taiwan is working with international partners to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and the Taiwan Strait, and the ministry and the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association maintain close contact and exchange ideas on a variety of issues regularly, he said.
Meanwhile, China has held frequent large-scale military exercises and conducted “gray zone” harassment in the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, actions that are a hybrid threat to nations in the region, Hsiao said, adding that they undermine regional security and stability, while escalating tension in the region.
“We urge China to fulfill its responsibility as a great power and stop any of its provocative actions that harm regional stability and security,” he said.
The ministry would continue to pay close attention to China’s challenges to the international order and Taiwan would continue to work closely with like-minded countries to ensure peace, prosperity, freedom and openness in the Indo-Pacific region, he added.
Separately, the ministry said that it strongly condemns and refutes claims in a joint statement by the foreign ministers of China and Syria that denigrated Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) and Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Asaad al-Shaibani attended a summit in Beijing on Monday and issued a joint statement that said “Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory.”
The claim is a serious deviation from reality, the ministry said in a separate statement, adding that it strongly condemns the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for continuously luring other countries and spreading preposterous claims that belittle Taiwan’s sovereignty.
It expressed regret that the Syrian transitional government had succumbed to and complied with China’s authoritarian actions.
“The Republic of China, Taiwan, is a country with independent sovereignty, and it and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other,” it said. “Any claims that arbitrarily and intentionally distort Taiwan’s sovereign status are bullying behavior that harm international peace and stability, and they cannot change the objective fact and status quo of the two sides not being subordinate to each other.”
The ministry urged the global community to recognize China’s authoritarian nature, and its intention to mislead states into believing that the Taiwan issue is an internal affair of China and block support for Taiwan.
Taiwan calls for the international community to continue countering China’s aggression via tangible actions, including clearly expressing their objection to China’s malicious intention to change the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, it said.
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