Tag: taiwan

The worry in the minds of voters is whether the US and Europe will have the resolve to challenge China should Xi start to carry out his threat of unification by force, writes Prof. Madhav Das Nalapat

Major capitals across the world are paying close attention to the 13 January 2024 Presidential elections in Taiwan. The concern is the possibility that Xi Jinping would take advantage of the twin crises in Ukraine and Gaza to ramp up aggressive action against Taiwan. Should the US, the EU and the Quad not respond to such activity in a deterrent manner, it would diminish their credibility across the world and boost the perception that the PRC under Xi Jinping is unstoppable in its expansionist drive. CCP officials close to Xi Jinping have publicly declared that the coming Presidential polls in Taiwan represent a choice between “war and peace”.

Their intent is to scare voters away from casting their ballots in favour of the present ruling party, the DPP. Apart from such a message, delivered with the quintessential lack of subtlety associated with CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping, the island nation has been bombarded with messaging from the other side to try and ensure that the DPP loses the January 2024 Presidential polls as well as control of the Legislative Yuan to the KMT.

Spanning two 4-year terms, President Tsai Ing-wen has not deviated from her consistent stance that only the people of Taiwan and not the CCP have any role to play in shaping the future of the country. Her party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has put up Taiwan’s Vice-President William Lai, as its Presidential candidate. His Vice-Presidential pick for the forthcoming polls is Bikhim Hsiao, who was previously the Taiwan Representative to the United States.

Both Lai and Hsiao favour close relations with Washington and other democracies, as does President Tsai. For the CCP, the DPP belief in the right of the people of Taiwan to decide the island nation’s future is anathema, and once Dr Tsai took over as President eight years ago, cut off all official contacts between Beijing and Taipei in a show of pique. President Tsai’s predecessor as Head of State, KMT leader Ma Ying-jeou, concentrated on bettering ties with China, signing trade and other agreements designed to enhance Taiwan’s reliance on the PRC as its major production hub and market.

TAIWAN’S INTEREST IN INDIA GROWS

Interestingly, both in business as well as in government, interest in India has expanded significantly when compared to past decades. In a first, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar dropped the word “informal” when he talked of the relationship between Taiwan and India. In another first, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh publicly called out China as an aggressive power. All this has made it clear that India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking at Taiwan with interest, and that it is very possible that Cabinet-level officials from Taiwan will be able to visit India, whereas till now, only Deputy Minister level officials were invited.

It is not a coincidence that (apart from the other three Quad members) Indonesia and the Philippines have a large expat community in Taiwan, and that the level and number of high-level visits between Taipei, Manila and Jakarta is at present much higher than between Taipei and Delhi. Interestingly, the PRC lobby in the country has been on overdrive seeking to prevent a proposed influx of Indian expats into Taiwan, using racial slurs and abusive epithets in the process against people from India.

Such transparently motivated lobbying by pro-PRC elements is unlikely to halt the move to get a large number of Indian expats into Taiwan, as such a step would benefit the economy, exactly in the way so many other countries with large Indian expat populations have witnessed without any complaint. Neither is there likely to be any slowdown in the volume of investment flowing into India. Indeed, both in terms of welcoming expats and in channelling investment into India, figures are expected to rise substantially in 2024 itself.

BEIJING IS KMT’S PRIORITY

Should the KMT candidate, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yih, win the Presidential poll in January next, his first priority would be to secure better relations with Beijing. The KMT believes that a warming and intensification of PRC-Taiwan ties would prevent Xi Jinping from carrying out his repeated threat of “uniting Taiwan by force during the next few years”. A prominent media personality who has PRC-friendly views, Jaw Shaw-kong, is Hou’s Vice-Presidential pick.

This stands in contrast to the DPP Vice-Presidential candidate, Bikhim Hsiao, who has over the years built up considerable rapport with US and European leaders in particular. The worry in the minds of voters is whether the US and Europe will have the resolve to challenge China should Xi start to carry out his threat of unification by force. They worry that the quagmire that Ukraine has become, combined with fresh violence in Gaza, may lessen NATO’s appetite for ensuring that Taiwan be protected from a possible PLA attack.

It is in such a context that the close linkages that Bikhim Hsiao has with US and European leaders may reassure voters that President Biden will keep his oft-declared intent to defend Taiwan by force were an attack by the PLA to be carried out. The effort by pro-China communicators is to cast doubt of US and European resolve, and claim that there is no appetite there for involvement in yet another war, now that the fires of Ukraine and Gaza are raging. They have been presenting the Biden-Xi and Blinken-Wang Yi interactions as US kowtows to China. If this view prevails with the electorate, it would be to the advantage of the KMT.

A THREE-PARTY RACE

The third political party in the Presidential fray is the Taiwan People’s Party led by its candidate, Ko Wen-jie. Both Ko and Lai are doctors who switched from medical practice to politics, Lai earlier than Ko. Ko’s pick for Vice-President, Cynthia Wu has spent many years in the UK and is fluent in European languages, although her business family has extensive commercial linkages with the PRC. That it is a three-party race is significant, for this was a factor that in earlier elections went to the benefit of the DPP.

This is what took place the only other time the DPP came to power in Taiwan, which was during the two terms of President Chen Shui-bian, who worked hard at establishing a Taiwanese identity as distinct from a Chinese identity. It was from Chen’s time that “Taiwan” slowly began to replace “Republic of China” in public and international discourse. Since then, it has become commonplace across the world to speak of “Taiwan” rather than the “Republic of China” when speaking about the island nation.

Even as an increasing number of Taiwanese have been to China, of which many have stayed in China sometimes for decades, the appetite for unification with the PRC has waned, with less than 10% of the population now wanting such an outcome. During the Tsai years, attempts at bullying by the other side of the straits has been constant. PLA Air Force aircraft routinely intrude into Taiwan’s air space, while the PLA Navy constantly strays into waters that by international law belong to Taiwan.

Tourist arrivals from the PRC and agricultural produce bought from Taiwan have often been curtailed in efforts to weaken the hold of the DPP over the electorate. Rather than increase the proportion of those who want unification with the PRC, such aggressive moves have had the reverse effect. Taiwanese remain firm on retaining their rights and freedoms, something that would be instantly taken away from them were the PLA to succeed in carrying out Xi’s threat of invading and occupying Taiwan.

For six days before talks between the TPP and the KMT on a joint ticket broke down on live television on November 23, efforts were ongoing mainly by the KMT side to ensure that Ko and Hou fight Lai and Hsiao as a joint ticket. They broke down over Ko’s insistence that he be the Presidential candidate and Hou his Vice-Presidential candidate. Had the KMT agreed to such a condition, ignoring the much smaller imprint of the newly formed TPP in Taiwanese politics, the KMT would have imploded.

On 23 January, both Ko as well as Foxconn founder Terry Guo, who had earlier wished to enter the race himself but seemed afterwards to probably be content with being the Prime Ministerial choice of the Hou-Ko (or Ko-Hou) ticket, should the two prevail over William Lai at the hustings. In a contrarian form of diplomacy, Ko insulted the KMT and its candidate (his intended running mate Hou) repeatedly on national television, over and over claiming that only he as the Presidential nominee of a prospective alliance ( a Ko-Hou ticket) could defeat the DPP.

Finally, the KMT had enough of such insults, and party chief Eric Chu and Presidential nominee Hou walked out of the Hou-Ko-Guo unity talks on 23 November on live television. KMT leaders believe that Ko’s hectoring of Hou may reduce rather than add to his popularity with the voter, while the sympathy factor generated by such abuse may push up Hou’s ratings. As mentioned earlier, however, the problem facing the KMT is that whenever in the past there has been a third party candidate in the fray besides the KMT and the DPP, the latter has prevailed.

The inability of the TPP and the KMT to unite against the DPP has given an advantage to DPP candidate William Lai, who has consistently been outpolling Ko and Hou individually in opinion polls. Across the world, the contest is being presented as a choice between two pro-China parties and a pro-US party. The PRC has been aggressive in seeking the defeat of the DPP, while the Biden administration has thus far been muted in its support for the DPP.

Of course, President Biden has several times reiterated that any attack by the PRC on Taiwan would result in the US entering the fray on behalf of the island nation, a stance repeated during the Xi-Biden talks. Given the volume of (mostly PRC-generated) disinformation, what matters is whether voters in Taiwan believe that the US would intervene in the event of a PLA attack or not.

If belief of Taiwanese voters in US intervention on Taiwan’s behalf is higher than fears of non-intervention, the DPP would have an advantage, especially in a 3-cornered race. On the other hand, KMT’s Hou comes from the south, which is a DPP stronghold, and has strong roots there. The contest between Lai and Hou is likely to be close, while TPP candidate Ko’s inroads into the youth vote make him difficult to write off.

Despite backroom efforts by the CCP to ensure a joint ticket against the DPP, the insistence of TPP leader Ko that he lead the ticket doomed such an outcome. Given the assertive personality of Ko, it is unlikely that he will drop out of the race in favour of Hou, a leader. Were the KMT to have agreed to a Ko-Hou ticket after such a volley of abuse by the TPP leader, even staunch pro-KMT voters may have hesitated to cast their ballots to elect Ko as President, for he is a politician who clearly hates the KMT and its leadership but sought a deal with them in order to come to power.

‘WAR OR PEACE’ IS THE CCP’S BATTLE CRY

Experts familiar with the CCP say that the plan of action is to emphasise the “War or Peace” warning tossed out by the PRC. They add that Xi would put into motion several actions within the next month that would signal aggressive intent should Taiwanese voters choose DPP’s Lai and Hsiao, neither of whom has hidden their preference for the US rather than the PRC as the principal partner for Taiwan, in contrast to the “pro-China” candidates, Hou and Ko.

The weeks ahead promise a stormy period, with several efforts likely to get carried out from across the Taiwan Straits by the United Front department of the PRC in order to try and influence the Presidential and legislative elections sufficiently to defeat the DPP. Should the KMT get a majority in the Legislative Yuan, the Speaker would be a former Mayor, Han Kuo-yu, who would see to it that every proposal of the Lai government is either delayed or made stillborn in the legislature. This is why regaining control of the legislature as well as the Presidency is vital for the DPP so as to ensure effective governance, should the Lai-Hsiao ticket prevail over that of the TPP and the KMT in the Presidential polls due less than two months from now.

ALSO READ: China Commits to Korean Peninsula Stability

The analysts have pointed out that China is being “deliberately unpredictable and incommunicative”, to keep the US military off guard in the Pacific…reports Asian Lite News

China’s increasing aggression around Taiwan Strait — and its refusal to speak to the US military through channels designed to avoid conflict — is fuelling the fears of another major war, The Washington Post reported.

During US President Joe Biden’s talks with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this week — their first meeting in a year — the re-establishment of those ties will be high on the agenda.

But, the analysts have pointed out that China is being “deliberately unpredictable and incommunicative”, to keep the US military off guard in the Pacific and to warn against American attempts to help defend Taiwan.

“It’s reached a very, very high level of tension” said Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia engagement at Defense Priorities, a think tank.

Without a breakthrough that eases mistrust, the current “fairly acute crisis” will continue. “War could essentially happen any time,” he said.

Xi and Biden are due to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco, part of a broader effort to reset relations that have rapidly deteriorated amid heated technology competition, a rogue balloon and increasingly brazen Chinese military activity in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, The Washington Post reported.

At the same time, as Beijing tries to intimidate Taiwan, the Chinese military has conducted more than 180 risky intercepts against US surveillance aircraft in the Pacific in the past two years, more than in the previous decade.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q Brown Jr., said that he had written to his Chinese counterpart urging the resumption of military communication channels that Beijing severed in retaliation for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last year.

It is “hugely important” to “ensure there is no miscalculation” between the militaries, he said.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan also reiterated this on Sunday. “The president is determined to see the reestablishment of military-to-military ties because he believes it’s in the US national security interest,” he said on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’.

According to the report, Chinese military provocations are becoming existential for Taipei.

Beijing claims Taiwan, an island that has never been governed by the Chinese Communist Party, as its territory, and top American intelligence officials say Xi has ordered his military to be ready to invade the island by 2027.

This has become more than theoretical over the past 14 months, since Nancy Pelosi visited and lauded Taiwan’s democratic system, which Beijing viewed as encouraging “separatist forces” in Taiwan.

Beijing retaliated by severing important channels of military-to-military communication and by ordering fighter jets and warships in large numbers to menace Taiwan. That has continued for more than a year. Beijing sent 336 aircraft to the edges of Taiwanese airspace in September alone, prompting Taiwan’s defence minister to warn that the scale and pace of drills were “getting out of hand”, the Washington Post reported.

The report further pointed out that the fighter jets that once stayed on China’s side of the Taiwan Strait have been crossing the median line, an unofficial border down the middle of the 110-mile-wide strait, with greater frequency and are venturing past Taiwan’s southern tip to the relatively less-defended east coast.

On September 17, a record 103 Chinese warplanes flew near Taiwanese airspace in a 24-hour period.

China sent a drone all the way around Taiwan for the first time in April, and this has quickly become a regular maneuver, with China sending unmanned aircraft to encircle the island five times since.

Chinese aircraft carriers are making themselves at home on the other side of the island, in the Pacific Ocean, which the United States has long considered its military purview. There, they launch jets at Taiwan’s east coast and practice repelling the United States should it one day come to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.

The September drills were the largest in the waters to Taiwan’s east for nearly a decade, with 17 warships including the Shandong aircraft carrier holding large-scale exercises stretching from the Philippines Sea to near the American territory of Guam.

Barely a month later, the Shandong strike group again sailed through the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, marking its third entry into the Pacific this year.

For Taipei, the frequency of Chinese drills over the last year confirms Beijing’s disregard for long-standing norms of standard military behavior in the region. Without those tacit agreements, it’s easier for accidents to happen and harder to contain fallout if they do.

There is also a political component to all this military coercion: Aside from wearing down Taiwanese defenses, it creates psychological pressure on the island’s 23 million inhabitants to give in to Beijing’s demands for unification, the Washington Post reported.

As per the analysts, Beijing is “saber rattling”, partly to try to influence the Taiwanese presidential election in January. Leading the polls is Lai Ching-te, vice president of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which historically supported formal independence from China.

The Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, which favours more trade and closer relations with Beijing, is trailing behind.

The report cited a US military intelligence assessment, which revealed in the Discord leaks, described how Washington’s Indo-Pacific Command now considers it harder to distinguish between Chinese military coercion and the full-scale mobilization that would presage an invasion.

China’s increasingly frequent entries aim to erode the US Navy’s ability to come to Taiwan’s defense if it came under attacks from China — something Biden has repeatedly said he believes it should do.

However, the US does not have a formal defense treaty with Taiwan, but it is committed to providing Taiwan, through arms sales and military aid, with weapons to defend itself, the report added.

China’s exercises are meant to demonstrate to the United States and its allies that China is ready to fight off the US Navy in the region, said Chieh Chung, an associate research fellow at National Policy Foundation, a Taiwanese think tank.

They are designed to “convey a strong sense of protest” against American involvement to defend Taiwan, he said.

As per the analysts, while Washington is pushing Beijing to restore military communications, China may be reluctant to talk as part of a strategy to wear down Taiwan and keep the US guessing.

“It’s almost like they want us to be unsettled,” said Allen, who was a staffer on the House Intelligence Committee between 2011 and 2013.

One way China has injected even greater uncertainty is by increasingly incorporating civilian ships, including ferries and cargo vessels, into its military exercises.

The analysts say that China would need these ships to move the huge numbers of troops necessary for an invasion.

In late September, Taiwan took the unusual step of announcing that it was actively monitoring an “abnormal” drill on the Chinese side of the Taiwan Strait, Washington Post reported.

The exercise involved at least 12 commercial ships rerouted from their usual routes to practice loading and unloading amphibious forces onto the coast of Fujian, the Chinese province closest to Taiwan, according to J Michael Dahm, a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, a think tank.

Satellite imagery analyzed by Dahm suggested that this year’s exercise involved significantly more general cargo ships than in the past. It focused on having amphibious forces get on and off ships moored offshore, a practice that would let troops disembark without needing to dock in Taiwan.

However, China probably remains years away from being capable of using civilian ships to support a successful cross-strait invasion, Dahm said.

Despite the Chinese efforts at unpredictability, the sheer scale of mobilization necessary to invade Taiwan means a sneak attack would be very difficult without American intelligence catching wind of Chinese plans, the report states.

But Beijing can hope to numb Taiwan and get a jump-start on the United States by constantly practicing ever more realistic invasion scenarios.

“These drills keep getting bigger and bigger,” said Tom Shugart, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

“As the number and frequency continues to grow, it naturally becomes that much harder to know whether next time is the real thing,” the Washington Post quoted him as saying. (ANI)

ALSO READ: Kwatra Co-Chairs India-Russia FOC Meeting in New Delhi

General Zhang Youxia, China’s CMC vice chairman, stated firmly, “The Chinese military will not tolerate any attempt to separate Taiwan from China and will be uncompromising.”…reports Asian Lite News

A top Chinese military official has said China will show no mercy towards Taiwan’s independence. This comes despite turmoil in the top ranks of the country’s armed forces, Voice of America (VOA) reported.

General Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC), said: “No matter who wants to separate Taiwan from China in any form, the Chinese military will never agree and will show no mercy.”

His remarks came at the 10th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing on Monday. More than 1,800 people attended the two-day forum — China’s biggest annual event focused on military diplomacy.

The participants included 99 official delegations and defence ministers from 19 countries, as well as military chiefs, international organization representatives, experts, scholars and observers, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency. The United States also sent a representative.

Former Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu was, however, absent.

Two Chinese senior Rocket Force commanders were dismissed in August and replaced by people from the Air Force and Navy with no experience in nuclear weapons management, a principal responsibility of the Rocket Force.

Research director at the US Air University’s China Aerospace Studies Institute Roderick Lee said the high-level changes in the Chinese military wouldn’t affect most operational units.

Lee said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington: “If there are lower-echelon guys being taken out as well, that probably has a greater impact. But day-to-day [People’s Liberation Army] operational readiness on the conventional or nuclear side, I doubt it is affected.”

He said the PLA’s administrative and operational functions are designed to be robust to absorb losses from losing even the entire party committee of a unit by having backup plans or processes to fill vacancies and compensate for losses.

Since taking power in 2012, Xi has cracked down on corruption in the military, although some believe he may also be bringing down political opponents.

Lee said since corruption is the norm in China’s military, removing people from higher positions will not make the PLA less stable, as per VOA.

“You [Xi] went through a system; you cleaned house, where corruption was the norm,” he said. “The people that you have left aren’t not corrupt. They’re just the least bad option you had left at those senior echelons. It’s hard to expect them not to be tempted again to either get back into corruption or remain corrupt and just try to hide it a little better. So, in that sense, it’s hard to go down from stability.”

Lee, however, said that such a corrupt system may leave Xi with no confidence in the PLA’s ability to accomplish the tasks he requires.

“I think Xi Jinping is probably quite frustrated that approaching a decade of anti-corruption efforts has apparently yielded not a whole lot to show for it because people are still apparently willing to engage in corrupt activities. Not this year, but one or two years ago, there was a whole slew of senior officials in the defense industry that were arrested for corruption issues,” he said, as per VOA. (ANI)

ALSO READ: India Sends Second Flight With 9 Tonnes of Relief Aid to Nepal

The ministry said “37 of the detected aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s southwest and southeast (air identification zone) ADIZ”….reports Asian Lite News

Over 40 Chinese warplanes were spotted around Taiwan in a single day, the self-ruled island’s defence ministry has said.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence (MND) said in a statement that 43 Chinese aircraft and 7 naval vessels were detected around the island in a 24-hour period leading up to 6:00 am Wednesday (2200 GMT Tuesday).

The ministry said “37 of the detected aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and entered Taiwan’s southwest and southeast (air identification zone) ADIZ”.

Earlier in October, China had launched a Long March rocket carrying a spy satellite that was reportedly spotted over Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ).

According to the MND, the PLA launched its rockets from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province, China. The flight altitude of the rocket, the defence ministry noted, was above the atmosphere and “poses no harm to Taiwan.”

Nevertheless, according to the MND, the rocket’s flight path went above Taiwan’s ADIZ’s southwest corner.

In order to enable a suitable response, it continued, it had deployed its joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system to track the ballistic dynamics, trajectories, and other data.

Following China’s intensified military aggression, economic coercion and threats against its neighbor over the last few years, Taipei’s ties with Beijing have been dealing with severe tensions.

China claims that Taiwan is part of their country while the latter called itself a sovereign and independent nation and not part of the former.

ALSO READ: UK, US, EU and China sign declaration of AI’s danger

This comes as a reference to the country’s longstanding goal of “reunification” with the democratic, self-ruled island….reports Asian Lite News

China’s military on Sunday released an animation depicting the journey to reunite two halves of a torn scroll across the Taiwan Strait, according to CNN.

This comes as a reference to the country’s longstanding goal of “reunification” with the democratic, self-ruled island.

The Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) released the animation to mark National Day, the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and is the latest short film to capitalize on nationalist sentiment over historic Chinese treasures held overseas.

China’s ruling Communist Party claims Taiwan, home to 24 million residents, as its territory — despite never having controlled it. It has long vowed to “reunify” Taiwan with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary.

At the very centre of that threat sits the Eastern Theater Command, the wing of China’s enormous military force that handles operations in the Taiwan Strait, and which routinely conducts military exercises including simulated precision attacks on the island, as per CNN.

Two cartoon elves in the animation represent the two halves of the famous artwork “Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains,” by Song dynasty painter Huang Gongwang.

The pieces of the “The Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains”, one of China’s best-known ancient paintings, are kept separately in museums in China and Taiwan.

Painted in the 14th century, the scroll was damaged by a fire in 1650 and split into two — with one part now kept at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and the other at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

As a result, the scroll has long been seen as a living symbol of the division between China and Taiwan.

The animation shows one elf, representing the scroll piece in Taipei, deciding to visit her counterpart in Hangzhou, reminiscing on when he had “come to visit me 12 years ago” — a reference to when China loaned Taiwan its half of the scroll for a joint exhibition of the complete work in 2011, during a brief period of warmer ties between the neighbours.

On the Taipei elf’s journey to Hangzhou, she passes by Chinese military aircraft and maritime vessels, marvelling at much of the hardware on display and exclaiming: “So cool!”

At the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, she is met by the second elf — and the pair visit the ongoing Asian Games, hosted this year in Hangzhou, arriving just in time to see the Taiwan team introduced as “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony.

For years, China has marginalized Taiwan in the international community, resulting in the island being blocked from international bodies such as the World Health Organization. Even when it is allowed to participate, it is under the moniker “Chinese Taipei” — including at the Olympic Games and various sporting competitions, to considerable resentment among many in Taiwan, as per CNN.

The animation ends with the two elves rejoining both halves of the scroll. (ANI)

ALSO READ: Political Unrest Prompts China to Spurn BRI Projects in Pakistan

China, which asserts Taiwan as part of its territory, has conducted increasingly large military drills in the air and waters around Taiwan…reports Asian Lite News

In 24-hour period, China’s military sent 103 warplanes towards Taiwan, which the island’s defense ministry claimed on Monday was a new daily record in recent times.

The planes were noticed between 6 a.m. on Sunday and 6 a.m. on Monday, the ministry said. As is customary, they turned back before reaching Taiwan.

China, which asserts Taiwan as part of its territory, has conducted increasingly large military drills in the air and waters around Taiwan as tensions have grown between the two and with the United States. The US, which is Taiwan’s main supplier of arms, opposes any attempt to change Taiwan’s status through force.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said that 40 of the planes crossed the symbolic halfway point between mainland China and the island. It also reported nine naval vessels in the last 24 hours.

The ministry called the Chinese military action “harassment” and warned that it could escalate the current tense atmosphere. “We urge the Beijing authorities to bear responsibility and immediately stop such kind of destructive military activities,” it said in a statement.”

China last week sent a flotilla of ships including the aircraft carrier Shandong into waters near Taiwan. The drills came shortly after the US and Canada sailed warships through the Taiwan Strait, the waters that separate the island from the mainland.

China also revealed a plan for an integrated development demonstration zone with Taiwan in China’s nearby Fujian province, trying to entice Taiwan while also warning it. Experts say it is China’s long-running carrot and stick approach.

The recent actions by China may be an attempt to sway Taiwan’s presidential election slated to be held in January. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which leans towards formal independence for the island, is anathema to the Chinese government. China favours opposition candidates who support working with the mainland.

Taiwan and China split in 1949 when the communists took control of China during a civil war. The losing Nationalists fled to Taiwan and set up their own government in the island.

The island is self-governing, though only a few foreign nations give it official diplomatic recognition. The US among others has formal ties with China while it maintains a representative office in Taiwan.

ALSO READ: China Increases Presence Around Taiwan

Taiwan rejects Elon Musk’s ‘integral part of China’ claim…reports Asian Lite News

Slamming Elon Musk for calling Taiwan an “integral part of China,” the Taiwan foreign minister has asserted that Taiwan is “not for sale”.

Musk, the owner of the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), as well as the Tesla (TSLA.O) electric car company and Starlink satellite network has stated that Taiwan is an integral part of China. His remarks at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles were recorded and posted to YouTube this week.

“Their (Beijing’s) policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because … the US Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force,” Musk said.

Responding to this, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, posted on X on Wednesday night, “Hope @elonmusk can also ask the #CCP to open @X to its people. Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart #Ukraine’s counterstrike against #Russia. Listen up, #Taiwan is not part of the #PRC & certainly not for sale! JW.”

Taiwan has been claimed by the People’s Republic of China as its territory.

Hope @elonmusk can also ask the #CCP to open @X to its people. Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart #Ukraine’s counterstrike against #Russia. Listen up, #Taiwan is not part of the #PRC & certainly not for sale! JW https://t.co/HEhyTYYXFp

— 外交部 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROC (Taiwan) 🇹🇼 (@MOFA_Taiwan) September 13, 2023

However, Taiwan’s government claims that because the People’s Republic of China has never ruled the island, it has no authority to claim sovereignty over it, speak for it, or represent it on the global stage, and that only the people of Taiwan can decide their future.

Taiwan was formally recognised by just 13 countries: Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Eswatini, and the Vatican City.

However, after Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s president in 2016, nine countries shifted allegiances to China, and Beijing has amplified its diplomatic efforts to isolate Taiwan. Taiwan’s government claims that it is a sovereign country with the right to state-to-state ties. (ANI)

ALSO READ: China Unveils ‘Blueprint’ For Taiwan Integration