The United States has urged China to stop pressuring Taiwan after Beijing launched war games around the Island as a “ stern warning” over Taiwanese Vice President William Lai’s recent visit to US.
The statement came as Taiwan said that some 25 Chinese Air Force planes had crossed the Taiwan Straits median line over the past 24 hours.
China has decried official contact between the US and Taiwan.
China launched its largest military drills around Taiwan in recent years in August 2022, when then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei.
Beijing also held large-scale combat readiness drills in August in response to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with current US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy during a transit through California.
Officials in Taiwan have meanwhile described China’s recent war games as a pretext to intimidate voters ahead of the island’s presidential elections next year.
Taiwanese Vice President William Lai, the frontrunner in the January election, said in an interview that it was not up to China to decide who wins the election.
“It’s not who China likes today, and then they can assume the post. This goes against the spirit of Taiwan’s democracy, and represents huge damage to Taiwan’s democratic system,” he said in the interview that was conducted while he was in New York last week.
China should not “make a fuss over nothing” when it comes to foreign travel by Taiwanese leaders, Lai said.
“My position is that Taiwan is not a part of the People’s Republic of China. We are willing to link up with the international community and talk to China under the guarantee of security.”
China has for many years wanted to “annex” Taiwan and this is not something that started under the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Government, he said, pointing to battles along the Chinese coast in the 1950s when China seized Taiwan-controlled islets.
ALJAZEERA
