Taiwan announced Tuesday the strengthening of its military ties with the United States to curb “authoritarian expansionism”, at the end of the visit to the island of an American delegation, denounced by Beijing as a “provocation”.
This five-day stay of parliamentarians from the United States Congress comes after the arrival on Friday on the island territory of the American Deputy Secretary of Defense, Michael Chase, reported by the British daily Financial Times.
“Taiwan and the United States continue to strengthen military exchanges,” Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday after meeting with US parliamentarians.
She stressed that “Taiwan will cooperate even more actively with the United States and other democratic partners to deal with international challenges like authoritarian expansionism and climate change.”
The Taiwanese president, however, did not specify what these future exchanges would include, but stressed that it was time “to explore more possibilities of cooperation” between the island and the United States. “Together we can continue to protect the values ??of democracy and freedom,” she insisted.
Asked about the American visit on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, reacted by accusing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in power in Taiwan of “provocations in favor of the independence” of the island. .
“It will not change the fact that Taiwan is part of China (…) and will not change the general trend which is the inevitable reunification of China”, he underlined during a press briefing. regular.
“Any conspiracy or action to secede (from China) relying on foreign support and to undermine relations between (the Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan) will only backfire on its own perpetrators and is doomed to fail.”
China considers Taiwan, with a population of 23 million, to be one of its provinces, which it has yet to reunify with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Beijing is thus opposed to any official or military contact between the authorities of the island and foreign countries. However, in recent years, several official trips by American officials have provoked the ire of Beijing.
Sino-American relations turned sour after the destruction by the United States of a Chinese balloon in early February over American territory, presented by Washington as a spy device and by Beijing as a civilian aerostat.
In Taipei, California Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the new House of Representatives committee on strategic competition with the Chinese Communist Party, said the visit was aimed at expanding “military and defence”, and to consolidate American ties with the island, a leader in the semiconductor sector.
The Democratic parliamentarian said he had “particularly appreciated” his meeting with Morris Chang, founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s leading chipmaker.
The semiconductor industry has been rocked by a slowing global economy that has dampened demand, and a series of U.S. export controls aimed at limiting Beijing’s ability to buy and manufacture high-end chips. range, used according to Washington “in military applications”.
Last year, Sino-US relations reached their lowest point in August after Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan.
In retaliation for what Beijing considered a provocation, the Chinese army responded with massive military maneuvers around the island.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that China may speed up its timetable for a possible military invasion of Taiwan – which remains hypothetical, however.
Washington recognizes the communist government in Beijing (the “People’s Republic of China”) as the only legitimate representative of China, while being the main support of Taipei (the “Republic of China”).
The United States provides the island with weapons for its defense and supports the territory’s right to decide its future.
02/21/2023 11:42:07 – Taipei (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
