The Taiwanese defense minister believes that military relations with Beijing are at their worst moment of the last four decades after a series of raids of Chinese planes in the Taipei Air Defense Zone.
“For the army, the current situation is the most somber for more than 40 years,” Chiu Kuo-Cheng declared in Parliament, hours after at least 150 Chinese combat aircraft penetrate in the Taiwan air defense zone from
Last Friday, China’s national day.
Chiu has warned that a “slight imprudence” or a “calculation error” could trigger a crisis in the Taiwan Strait, adding that Beijing was ready to launch an “large-scale invasion” of the island for the year 2025.
China “is able to do it now, but it must calculate the expense you will have to pay and the type of result you want to obtain. After 2025, spending and losses will be reduced to a minimum,” Chiu said, without giving more details.
President Xi Jinping, who has qualified the Taiwan control of “inevitable”, has also recognized that relationships are “dark” in a letter addressed to the main chief of opposition chosen in Taiwan last week -The political veteran Eric
Chu, 60, who undertook, when elected to “resume” contacts with China.
Beijing has increased the military pressure exerted on the island since the 2016 election of President Tsai Ing-Wen, which rejects “the principle of a single China.”
She considers that the island is a de facto sovereign nation and not part of China.
Tsai Ing Wen warned yesterday of the “catastrophic” consequences for the region if Taiwan falls into the hands of China.
“Taiwan wants peaceful coexistence with China, but if our democracy and way of life are threatened, we will do everything possible to defend ourselves,” said the president Tsai yesterday.
The previous year a record of incursions of Chinese military aircraft was broken to the Taiwan Defense Zone, with 380. So far this year, 600 have been overcome.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, said he had talked with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, about Taiwan and that both had agreed to respect the status quo while increasing the tension between Beijing and Taipei.
“I’ve talked about XI about Taiwan, we agree … In accordance with Taiwan, we have made it clear that I do not think I should be doing anything else to comply with the agreement,” Biden said in statements to journalists in Washington after returning from
An economic trip to Michigan.
Biden seemed to refer this to the status quo that governs between the US and China by which Washington acknowledged from 1979 to Beijing as the only Chinese government with the understanding that Taiwan has a future in peace.
This policy is known as “a single China” and was adopted by the Mimmy President Jimmy Carter.
Taiwanese defense minister Chiu Kuo-Cheng has stated that China will be “able to organize a large-scale invasion of the island for 2025.
