Taiwan president calls for peace and dialogue with China amid heightened military activity
Taiwan's president has reiterated calls for peace and dialogue with China as he marked one year in office, amid heightened Chinese military activity and worsening political division at home.
Lai Ching-te, who was inaugurated a year ago, told reporters on Tuesday that a war would have 'no winners', but Taiwan would continue to strengthen its defences to ward off a Chinese invasion or attempt to annex it by force.
'It is the aggressor who undermines peace … Taiwan is a peace-loving nation, and our society values goodwill,' he said on Tuesday in response to questions after his formal address. 'I am deeply committed to peace, because peace is priceless, and in war there are no winners.'
'However, whilst our pursuit of peace is sincere, it must not be naive.'
He urged Beijing to restart dialogue with his government on equal terms, 'using exchanges to replace hemming in, dialogue to replace confrontation'.
China's ruling Communist party (CCP) cut all ties and dialogue with Taiwan's government when Lai's predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, won the 2016 election for their pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive party. The CCP considers the party to be unlawful separatists.
In response to the president's speech, China's official state media, Xinhua, accused Lai of 'deliberately escalating' cross-Strait tensions.
'Since taking office, the Lai Ching-te administration has brazenly pursued 'Taiwan independence' to serve partisan and personal gain, charging headlong down a path of division and confrontation that threatens the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait,' it said.
In recent weeks China's military launched larger than usual numbers of planes and ships into Taiwan's air defence identification zone – an average of about 20 planes and 11 navy and coastguard ships each day.
Taiwan authorities had publicly warned of likely Chinese retaliation or pre-emptive activity in response to the speech. Last week government officials told reporters they couldn't rule out military drills in the days after Lai spoke, and on Monday the coast guard said Beijing could launch 'political warfare' to disrupt public morale in Taiwan.
Lai has taken a more publicly assertive stance against China's aggression than his predecessor Tsai, which analysts had been expecting his inauguration anniversary speech to continue. Earlier this month he said Taiwan was facing a similar threat to Europe in the 1930s.
However the speech on Tuesday in the end made no mention of China or its annexation plans, and his related comments only came in response to questions in the subsequent press conference. Instead the speech focused on domestic pledges to reduce carbon emissions, plans to deal with the US Trump administration's punitive tariffs, and domestic political turmoil.
'The trade de-escalation reached between Beijing and Washington has generated anxiety in Taipei over whether the issue of Taiwan may emerge in future US-China talks,' said Amanda Hsiao, a director in Eurasia Group's China practice, referring to fears Beijing may seek a softening of the US's longstanding support of Taiwan. 'This uncertainty may be a factor for why Lai chose not to reiterate his views on the China threat in a high profile speech.'
Amid worsening domestic political turmoil Lai announced he would offer national security briefings to the chair of the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). The KMT and another rival party, the TPP, control the majority of seats in Taiwan's legislature and have been accused of blocking Lai's agenda.
The opposition parties have accused Lai and his Democratic Progressive party of increasing tensions with China and stifling opposition. In the name of national security, Lai's administration has increased scrutiny of Chinese-born people in Taiwan, and cracked down on public statements that support Beijing's goals.
The KMT welcomed the new briefings as Lai having 'finally taken a small step' to end partisan conflict, but said he had much more to do.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Iran vows revenge for Israeli strikes, saying it will write ‘end of this story'
Iran vowed to avenge the attack on its nuclear sites and the assassination in Tehran of its senior military leadership, saying it would respond forcefully and that the 'end of this story will be written by Iran's hand'. In the first signs of a counterstrike, Israel said Iran had launched 100 drones towards Israel and that its air defences were intercepting them outside Israeli territory. Iraq said more than 100 Iranian drones had crossed its airspace, and, soon after, neighbouring Jordan said its air force and defence systems had intercepted several missiles and drones that had entered its airspace, for fear they would fall in its territory. Responding to the most serious attack on Iran since the revolution in 1979, the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened 'severe punishment' and claimed residential areas had been targeted. The Iranian leadership vowed both a military and diplomatic response, saying women and children had been killed in the strikes across Iran. It remains to be seen if Iran decides to attack US military sites in the Middle East, but its leaders are likely to believe that the Trump administration was not just aware of these strikes in advance, but covertly endorsed them. The US said it had not been involved in the attacks, but Tehran pointed both to Israeli officials stating the attack had been completely coordinated with the US, and that the Israeli air force is entirely dependent on US supplies. In a furious statement, the Iranian government accused Israel of terrorism and insisted the attack demonstrated it 'does not adhere to any international rules or laws and, like a drunkard, openly and brazenly engages in terror and ignites the flames of war before the eyes of the world, including westerners who claim to uphold human rights and international law'. 'Starting a war with Iran is playing with the lion's tail,' the statement added. In a telling warning that the Iranian regime, if it survives, may now indeed feel the need to try to assemble a nuclear bomb in the face of Israel's attacks, the statement further said: 'The world now better understands Iran's insistence on the right to enrichment, nuclear technology and missile power, and the enemy has made it possible to prove our injustice and righteousness, who is the aggressor and which regime is threatening the security of the region.' Among those killed by Israeli strikes were Gen Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards Gen Gholamali Rashid, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander, the nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoun Abbasi, the former head of the Atomic Energy Organization. Residential buildings across Tehran were hit. Pictures showed that specific floors on high-rise apartments were struck, but the damage had spread to many different floors. Army barracks across the country appear to have been hit, with reports trickling in of deaths and damage. But Isfahan regional governors said there had been no leakage of uranium from the Natanz nuclear facility. No electricity or oil installations were struck, but Israel may well return to hit economic targets in the coming days, depending on any Iranian response. Iran, aware that the savage blow to its prestige may lead to some form of uprising, urged its citizens only to listen to official channels, and ignore rumours. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had been in Oslo with other Arab ministers for a security conference and had been looking towards Oman-brokered talks on Sunday with the US special envoy Steve Witkoff. The planned sixth round of talks, the first in which both sides had put forward proposals in writing, were to focus on whether Iran would be allowed to continue domestic uranium enrichment with monitoring by the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran insists it did not have a covert plan to build a nuclear bomb, but all signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty including Iran have a sovereign right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. It points out that the comprehensive report put to the IAEA board this week showed no evidence that Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon. The report did say it could not be certain that the nuclear programme was entirely civilian in purpose. Tehran has consistently argued that its increased stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium was a calculated and legitimate response to Donald Trump unilaterally withdrawing in 2018 from the nuclear deal agreed with Barack Obama three years earlier and imposing economic sanctions. The highly experienced Iranian negotiating team were aware that Israel was increasingly worried that Trump, facing an open war for his ear on Iran in Washington, might strike an unsatisfactory deal with Iran. But the consensus among Arab diplomats was that Trump was sincere in saying he did not want Israel to strike, and that he would allow the bilateral US-Iran talks to play out before permitting any Israeli action. The belief among Iranian negotiators that they had further time before Trump implicitly or explicitly sanctioned military action looks, in retrospect, to have been a severe error. But the right to enrich has been an Iranian red line for decades, and they will reject the accusation they overplayed a weak hand. Moreover, Iranian diplomats had been led to believe initially that the US would permit Iran to continue some form of uranium enrichment, but had been struggling to convert that belief into a specific American offer in the talks held in Oman and Rome. Iran will now have to reflect whether it was being played by the US negotiators, or whether Israel has the freedom of action to mount such an assault without a green light from Washington. To many Iranian eyes, despite the reports that Trump was distancing himself from Israel, there is little that Trump has done in practice since taking office to restrain Israel either in Gaza or across the region. Araghchi, for instance, said on 23 April: 'The attempts by the Israeli regime and certain special interest groups to derail diplomacy – using variety of tactics – is abundantly clear for all to see. Our security services are on high alert.' Iran's air defences have proved ineffective, partly due to the previous airstrikes launched on Iran by Israel in October that took out Russian-made air defence systems, including around its nuclear sites. One of the few cards Iran has to play is that in recent months, it has managed to improve its fractured relations with Arab states in the region, even though its policy of forward defence based on proxy groups in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Yemen and Iraq was largely dismantled by Israel. But the valued Gulf state sympathy for Iran is not likely to extend to joint military action against Israel.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
China tells G7 to stop 'manipulating' China issues for its own agenda
BEIJING, June 13 (Reuters) - China warned the Group of Seven advanced economies on Friday against "manipulating" issues related to the world's second-largest economy for their own agenda, after they accused Beijing of unfair business practices a year earlier. Beijing's criticism of the G7 and what it represents comes amid a surge in global trade tension between the United States and China this year, as well as within the bloc's membership. In remarks ahead of a three-day G7 summit in Canada set to start from Sunday, Lin Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry, accused the group of having always upheld a Cold War mentality. The bloc should "stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs, stop undermining other countries' development, (and) stop manipulating issues related to China," Lin told a regular news conference. The G7 provokes conflicts and confrontations, said Lin, adding that such practices were "doomed to fail". In the communique after its 2024 summit in Italy that mentioned China more than 20 times, the G7 said its companies needed to be protected from China's unfair business practices. It also warned of action against Chinese financial institutions that helped Russia obtain weapons for its war in Ukraine. The participation of countries beyond the grouping, such as India and Brazil, in last year's event also irked China, which viewed the move as a bid to sow discord among countries of the Global South. New leaders will represent five of the G7's members - Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan and the United States - at next week's summit.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
China expresses deep concern about Israel's attacks on Iran, urges de-escalation
BEIJING, June 13 (Reuters) - China was deeply concerned about the Israeli attacks on Iran and urged de-escalation for regional peace and stability, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday. "China opposes any infringement upon Iran's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity, and opposes any escalation of tensions and expansion of conflicts. A sudden rise in regional tensions is not in the interests of any party," Spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular press briefing. Lin also said China was ready to play a constructive role in easing the situation. Israel launched large-scale strikes against Iran on Friday, saying it was the start of a prolonged operation to prevent Tehran from building an atomic weapon. Iran promised a harsh response with Israel saying it was working to intercept about 100 drones launched towards its territory. Beijing and Tehran share friendly ties, supported by China's search for energy security through Iran's oil shipments and a wider strategy of increasing influence across the Middle East to rival the United States. Earlier on Friday, the Chinese embassies in Israel and Iran issued advisories to citizens warning of the "complex and severe" security situation in the two countries. The embassy in Tel Aviv also warned those in Israel to prepare for possible missile, rocket and drone attacks.
