asia-pacific

In an interview with FRANCE 24, Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said that Taiwan welcomed the final communiqué of the NATO summit, which criticised China's "stated ambitions and coercive policies". He stressed that NATO had "stated the truth" and that Taiwan appreciated that NATO was "paying attention" to the threat posed by Beijing in the Indo-Pacific region. Wu also said that Taiwan agreed with the US government's assessment that China's President Xi Jinping had not yet decided whether China would attack Taiwan by 2027. "We see no imminence in the Chinese military actions and war is not unavoidable," Wu said.

Wu pointed out that while the war in Ukraine has had severe global economic consequences, a war in the Taiwan Strait would be a "disaster" for the world because about half the world's goods pass through the waterway and approximately 90 percent of high-end semiconductor chips are produced in Taiwan.

The Taiwanese foreign minister said Russia and China were beefing up their military cooperation, pointing to joint military exercises in the Indo-Pacific region. "Russia remains very active" in the Far East despite the war in Ukraine, he stated.

'We see no imminence in the Chinese military actions'

He said Taiwan agreed with the US government's assessment that Chinese President Xi Jinping had not yet decided whether China would attack Taiwan by 2027. "We see no imminence in the Chinese military actions and war is not unavoidable," Wu said. He added, however, that China was "posturing to pressure" Taiwan and trying to reach its goal without the actual use of force.

Wu added that the threat existed and pointed to China's military drills close to Taiwan as a strategy to "compress" Taiwan's reaction time in the event of a conflict. He said Taiwan was trying to "beef up" its defence capabilities and hailed its close cooperation with the US.

Finally, Wu urged the European Commission to begin negotiations with Taiwan over a bilateral investment agreement, noting that that it was also in Europe's interest to start negotiating with Taiwan.      

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