Taiwan will ‘not provoke confrontation' with China, vice president says
'We do not seek conflict. We will not provoke confrontation,' said Bi-khim Hsiao, adding that her government has urged Beijing to communicate 'with parity and respect.'
Hsiao, who has served under Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te since their election win last year, said her government has seen 'a dramatic uptick in provocative and proactive CCP efforts to infiltrate, sabotage and divide our society,' referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own territory and has repeatedly threatened to annex it, by force if necessary. In recent years, Beijing has ramped up its military intimidation of the island, sending jets and ships nearby almost daily.
China refuses to speak with Hsiao and Lai and has labeled them 'diehard 'Taiwan independence' separatists,' a designation for which it has threatened the death penalty.
In a notable attempt of alleged intimidation by Beijing, Czech intelligence officials last month said Chinese diplomats planned to stage a car crash during Hsiao's 2024 visit to the country. No crash occurred, but a Chinese official ran a red light while following Hsiao's car.
Speaking at the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents' Club in Taipei, Hsiao said she has experienced 'varying degrees of pressure and threats' over the years, including sanctions by China.
'But I will not let that intimidate me or stop me from voicing my views or from voicing the views of the people of Taiwan, and we will continue to be active in the international community,' she said.
Regarding recurring U.S. intelligence reports that China may be planning to invade Taiwan before 2027, Hsiao said her government is focused on preempting that.
'Everything we are doing right now is to prevent such a conflict from happening — not just in 2027, but ever,' she said.
Taiwan is 'very urgently investing in our self-defense capabilities' in order to deter 'any miscalculation and any attempt at disrupting the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,' she added.
Taiwan on Friday wrapped up annual military drills, which simulated defenses against a possible invasion by China. The drills included fortifying ports and possible Chinese landing points on the island, as well as civil defense exercises.
Taiwan sources most of its weapons from the United States, which is bound by its own laws to provide the island with the means to defend itself.
Like most countries, the U.S. does not recognize Taiwan as country, but acts as its main unofficial ally. Washington supports preserving the status quo in Taipei's relationship with Beijing, which means neither side should make a move toward independence or annexation, respectively.
Taiwan's relationship with the U.S. is 'very important' and has historically held through different administrations while garnering bipartisan congressional support, Hsiao said.
Trade negotiators from the two sides are working 'around the clock' to reach a deal that would pre-empt tariffs of 32 per cent on all Taiwanese goods from coming into effect Aug. 1, she said. Washington lowered tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 10 per cent for 90 days to allow for the trade talks.
The tariffs are part of duties U.S. President Donald Trump levied against nearly all U.S. trading partners beginning in April, accusing them of running large trade surpluses.
Simina Mistreanu, The Associated Press
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
3 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Let's not panic about Taiwan yet
Opinion 'I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we (the U.S. and China) will fight in 2025,' wrote General Mike Minihan, head of U.S. Air Mobility Command, in a private memo two years ago. There's still five months to go, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he's wrong. Don't take my word for it, because my recent record in these matters is bad. I didn't think Russia's Vladimir Putin was crazy enough to invade Ukraine although I knew he was largely detached from reality, and I was wrong. For a long time I would not use the word 'genocide' to describe what Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu was doing in Gaza, and I was wrong again. In my defence, I had not spent quality time with either man and I was reluctant to predict their actions based entirely on other people's estimates of their characters (especially since most of those people didn't know them personally either). I still felt compelled to weigh the pros and cons of the case, on the mistaken assumption that facts had some influence on their decisions. The possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is a far greater threat to the peace of the world (such as it is) than the relative sideshows in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. Aircraft carriers and nuclear weapons on both sides. A few poorly planned displays of 'determination,' and the U.S. is in a war with China — with the two Koreas and Japan not far behind. China's President Xi Jinping will never rule out using force to 'recover' Taiwan, but the story that he has set a 2027 deadline for that terrifying gamble is just a Washington think-tank special. He does harp about it a lot, though. Successive American administrations have practised 'strategic ambiguity' (i.e. maybe the U.S. would fight to defend Taiwan and maybe it wouldn't), and the fickle enthusiasms of Donald Trump muddy the waters even further. He is widely seen as a strategic coward (TACO), but he is sufficiently erratic that his response is really incalculable. As for Taiwan, President Lai Ching-te of the cautiously pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) serves up the usual word salad: 'The message of history is clear. Today we share the same values and face similar challenges as many of the democracies that participated in the European war (1939-45).' Evasiveness as policy, so as not to rile China. So I will risk my reputation as a soothsayer once again and assume that both Xi Jinping and Lai Ching-te are rational men. In that case, it is unlikely that either man will risk everything on one roll of the dice. Xi will not set the machinery in motion for a sea- and airborne invasion of Taiwan, and Lai will certainly not declare independence for Taiwan. No government of Taiwan, even back in the decades when the KMT (now reformed) was the tyrannical and maniacally anti-communist single ruling party, has ever seriously considered abandoning the sacred fiction that there is only one China including Taiwan. There is just a persistent non-violent dispute over which government is legitimate, Beijing or Taipei. As for Xi, who is effectively president-for-life, he faces no special deadline to claim his prize. 'Reunification' is his legacy project, but he has just turned 72 and there's lots of time yet. And always before him is the nightmare example of Putin's three-day 'special military operation' to bring Ukraine back under the rule of the Russian 'motherland.' Above all, there is Taiwan's 'silicon shield.' The island state manufactures 47 per cent of the world's advanced semiconductor chips, including all of the most advanced ones. Even the United States is one generation behind, and so is China despite its 'Deep Seek' triumph in producing much cheaper high-performance AIs (on Nvidia chips made in Taiwan). Invade Taiwan and all that is gone. It might be irrational, but even the Trump administration might feel that Taiwan is a treasure that it must defend come what may. The game is not worth the candle, and Xi will not invade for at least three years. He probably never will. There! I said it! Now we wait and see. Gwynne Dyer's new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World's Climate Engineers.
Toronto Star
4 hours ago
- Toronto Star
CGTN: President Xi Jinping calls on China, EU to provide more stability, certainty for world
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with European Union leaders during their visit to Beijing for the 25th China-EU Summit on Thursday. CGTN published an article exploring China-EU relations in two-way trade and investment, emphasizing the need for both sides to embrace multilateralism, openness and cooperation to bring greater stability and certainty to the world. BEIJING, July 26, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Fifty years ago, China-Europe trade was a trickle. Now, as the two sides mark half a century of ties, a single day's trade equals what they exchanged in the entire year when relations were first established.
Winnipeg Free Press
5 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
US-China trade talks: Can China reduce its export dependence?
BEIJING (AP) — China's high dependence on exports will likely be a key focus of a new round of U.S.-China trade talks this coming week in Stockholm, but a trade deal would not necessarily help Beijing to rebalance its economy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he hopes the negotiations can take up this issue, along with China's purchases of oil from Russia and Iran, which undercut American sanctions on those two countries. Hopes rose for a breakthrough in talks after U.S. President Donald Trump announced deals with Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines this week. The U.S. wants China to do two things: Reduce what both the U.S. and the European Union see as excess production capacity in many industries, including steel and electric vehicles. And secondly, to take steps to increase spending by Chinese consumers so the economy relies more on domestic demand and less on exports. 'We could also discuss the elephant in the room, which is this great rebalancing that the Chinese need to do,' Bessent told financial news network CNBC. He said China's share of global manufacturing exports at nearly 30%, 'can't get any bigger, and it should probably shrink.' China is tackling the same issues — for domestic reasons The issues are not new, and China has been working to address them for years, more for domestic reasons than to reduce its trade surpluses with the U.S. and other countries. Bessent's predecessor as treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, made industrial policy a focus of a trip to China last year. She blamed government subsidies for flooding the global market with 'artificially cheap Chinese products.' The European Union, whose top leaders met their Chinese counterparts in Beijing on Thursday, has cited subsidies to justify EU tariffs on electric vehicles made in China. In the 1980s, the U.S. pressured Japan to boost consumer spending when American manufacturing was overwhelmed by exports from the likes of Toyota and Sony. Economists have long argued that China likewise needs to transform into a more consumer-driven economy. Consumer spending accounts for less than 40% of China's economy, versus close to 70% in the United States and about 54% in Japan. Chinese leaders have spoken about both factory overcapacity and weak consumer spending as long-term problems and have sought over the past 20 years to find ways to rebalance the economy away from export manufacturing and massive investments in dams, roads, railways and other infrastructure. Fierce price wars have prompted critical reports in official media saying that companies are 'racing to the bottom,' skimping on quality and even safety to reduce costs. With strong government support, they've also expanded overseas, where they can charge higher prices but still undercut local competitors, creating a political backlash. Economists say China needs a consumer-driven economy All that competition and price cutting has left China battling deflation, or falling prices. When companies receive less for their products, they tend to invest less. That can lead to job cuts and lower wages, sapping business activity and spending power — contrary to the long-term goal of increasing the share of consumer spending in driving overall growth. To counter that, the government is spending billions on rebates and subsidies for people who trade in their cars or appliances for new ones. But acknowledging a problem and solving it are two different things. Economists say more fundamental changes are needed to boost consumption and rein in overcapacity. Such changes can only come incrementally over time. Private Chinese companies and foreign-invested companies create the most jobs, but they've suffered from swings in policy and pressures from the trade war, especially since the pandemic. Demographic changes are another challenge as China's population shrinks and ages. Many experts advocate expanding China's social safety net, health insurance, pensions and other support systems, so that people would feel freer to spend rather than save for a medical emergency or retirement. Yan Se, an economist at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, warned at a recent forum that deflation will become a long-term issue if China doesn't step up its welfare benefits. 'Chinese people deserve a better life,' he said. Facing external threats, China wants to be more self-reliant One possibility, put forward at the same forum by Liu Qiao, the dean of the business school, would be to change incentives for local government officials, rewarding them for raising consumption or household incomes instead of meeting an economic growth target. He doesn't see that happening nationwide but said it could be tested in a province. 'That would send out a message that China needs a different approach,' he said. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made transforming the country into a technology superpower a top priority. It's a goal that has gained urgency as the U.S. has tightened restrictions on China's access to high-end semiconductors and other advanced knowhow. Output in high-tech manufacturing is growing quickly, adding to potential overcapacity, just as what happened with the government's encouragement of 'green' technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Various industries, including EV makers, have pledged to address the issue, but some local governments are striving to keep money-losing enterprises afloat, reluctant to lose tax revenues and jobs, or to fail to meet economic growth targets. Going forward, the government is calling for more coordination of economic development polices in fields such as artificial intelligence so that not every province champions the same industry. But government moves to counter the impact of higher tariffs tend to support sectors already in overcapacity, and the share of consumption in the economy has fallen in recent years. 'A sustained improvement in household consumption will require greater reform ambition,' the World Bank said in its most recent update on China's economy.' ___ AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok contributed to this report.
