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A battle with China, which has threatened to invade Taiwan, would be disastrous for everyone involved, the island’s defence minister said on Thursday. China has generally backed Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that has parallels in Beijing’s stance to Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy that it claims as Chinese property that it intends to annexe by force if necessary.
“No one wants to fight,” one participant says. “Taiwan’s defence minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, told reporters. “It’s something that should be thought about carefully.”” “If you really went to war, that would be disastrous for everyone,” Chiu says. Taiwan’s defence establishment says, “We watch and listen, but we don’t speak.” We keep track of events and prepare ourselves, but we never discuss or argue them in front of others.”
Delegates blamed foreign influence and separatism in Taiwan during the annual meetings of China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress, and its advisory body this week in Beijing, while bolstering China’s legal and financial muscle to resist Taiwan support. “Separatist operations and collusion with external forces are the root cause of the current tension and disruption in the Taiwan Strait,” a spokesperson for the People’s Liberation Army delegation at the NPC stated on Wednesday.
“The more the United States and Japan make waves on the Taiwan issue, the greater the actions we will take to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Col. Wu Qian said, blaming Taiwan’s pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party. Wu also defended the defence budget rise, arguing that China has “maintained moderate and steady growth to meet complex security problems and fulfil China’s obligations as a large country.”
Separately, a member of China’s ceremonial legislature’s advisory body recommended tightening a 2005 secession law that lays out the legal conditions for an attack on Taiwan. New law, according to Zhang Liangqi, is needed to target individuals advocating Taiwan’s formal and permanent independence from China, from which it split in 1949 due to civil conflict.
China has been staging threatening drills and flying military jets near Taiwan’s airspace in what it deems a warning to Taiwan independence activists and their foreign backers, notably on February 24, the day Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.
