Singapore:

Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun warned Sunday his military is ready to “forcefully” stop Taiwan independence but called for greater exchanges with the United States.

The remarks at an annual security forum in Singapore followed the first substantive face-to-face talks in 18 months between the two countries’ defence chiefs.

“We have always been open to exchanges and cooperation, but this requires both sides to meet each other halfway,” Dong told the Shangri-La Dialogue where he met with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday.

“We believe that we need more exchanges precisely because there are differences between our two militaries.”

Dong and Austin met for over an hour at the luxury hotel hosting the forum, which is attended by defence officials from around the world and in recent years has been seen as a barometer of US-China relations.

After the meeting, Austin said that telephone conversations between US and Chinese military commanders would resume “in the coming months”, while Beijing hailed the “stabilising” security relations between the countries.

This year’s Shangri-La Dialogue comes a week after China held military drills around self-ruled Taiwan and warned of war over the US-backed island following the inauguration of President Lai Ching-te, who Beijing has described as a “dangerous separatist”.

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has always been an indestructible and powerful force in defence of the unification of the motherland, and it will act resolutely and forcefully at all times to curb the independence of Taiwan and to ensure that it never succeeds in its attempts,” Dong told the forum on Sunday.

“Whoever dares to split Taiwan from China will be crushed to pieces and suffer his own destruction.”

On the South China Sea, which China claims almost entirely and where it has been involved in confrontations with Philippine vessels, Dong warned of “limits” to Beijing’s restraint.

“China has maintained sufficient restraint in the face of rights infringements and provocation, but there are limits to this,” Dong said.

Flashpoint disputes

President Joe Biden’s administration and China have been stepping up communication to ease friction between the nuclear-armed rivals, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken visiting Beijing and Shanghai last month.

A key focus has been the resumption of military-to-military dialogue, which is seen as critical to preventing flashpoint disputes from spinning out of control.

China scrapped military communications with the United States in 2022 in response to then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing were further stoked by issues including an alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down over US airspace, a meeting between Taiwan’s then-president Tsai Ing-wen and Pelosi’s successor Kevin McCarthy and American military aid for Taipei.

China is also furious over the United States’ deepening defence ties in the Asia-Pacific, particularly with the Philippines, and its regular deployment of warships and fighter jets in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

Beijing views this as part of a decades-long US effort to contain it.

The two sides agreed after a summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Biden last November to restart high-level military talks, including over military operations near Taiwan, Japan and in the South China Sea.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Taipei:

Taiwan on Thursday condemned China as “shameless” after Beijing’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations thanked the world for its concern about a strong earthquake on the island.

China claims democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory and also claims the right to speak for it on the international stage, to the fury of Taipei given Beijing’s communist government has never ruled the island and has no say in how it chooses its leaders.

On Wednesday, after the 7.2 earthquake hit eastern Taiwan, killing 10 people, China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., Geng Shuang, mentioned at a meeting about children’s rights that another speaker had brought up the quake in “China’s Taiwan”.

China is concerned about the damage and has expressed condolences to Taiwan and offered aid, he said, according to a transcript of his remarks carried on the Chinese mission to the U.N.’s website.

“We thank the international community for its expressions of sympathy and concern,” he added.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry expressed anger at the remarks.

The ministry “solemnly condemns China’s shameless use of the Taiwan earthquake to conduct cognitive operations internationally”, it said, using Taiwan’s normal term for what it views as Chinese psychological warfare.

This shows China has no goodwill towards Taiwan, the ministry added.

Taiwan’s government has already thanked governments and leaders around the world for their messages of concern and offers of support, including from the United States, the island’s most important international supporter despite the lack of diplomatic ties.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The increased frequency of China’s military activities around Taiwan recently has raised the risk of events “getting out of hand” and sparking an accidental clash, the island’s defence minister said on Saturday.

Taiwan has said that the past two weeks has seen dozens of fighters, drones, bombers and other aircraft, as well as warships and the Chinese carrier the Shandong, operating nearby.

China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has in recent years carried out many such drills around the island, seeking to assert its sovereignty claims and pressure Taipei.

Asked by reporters on the sidelines of parliament whether there was a risk of an accidental incident sparking a broader conflict given the frequency of the Chinese activities, Taiwan Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said: “This is something we are very worried about”.

Warships from China’s southern and eastern theatre commands have been operating together off Taiwan’s east coast, he added.

“The risks of activities involving aircraft, ships, and weapons will increase, and both sides must pay attention,” Chiu said.

China has not commented about the drills around Taiwan, and its defence ministry has not responded to requests for comment.

Chiu said that when the Shandong was out at sea, which Taiwan first reported on Sept. 11, it was operating as the “opposing force” in the drills. Ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang added that China’s Eastern Theatre Command forces were the “attacking force”, simulating a battle scenario.

Taiwan’s traditional military planning for a potential conflict has been to use its mountainous east coast, especially the two major air bases there, as a place to regroup and preserve its forces given it does not directly face China unlike the island’s west coast.

But China has increasingly been flexing its muscles off Taiwan’s east coast, and generally displaying its ability to operate much further away from China’s own coastline.

China normally performs large-scale exercises from July to September, Taiwan’s defence ministry has said.

On Saturday the ministry said China had largely dialled back its drills, reporting that over the previous 24 hour period it had only spotted two Chinese aircraft operating in its air defence zone.

Taiwan has frequently said that it would remain calm and not escalate the situation, but that it won’t allow “repeated provocations” from China, whose forces have so far not entered Taiwan’s territorial seas or airspace.

As People’s Liberation Army fighter jets from China sped toward Taiwan on Friday, life on the self-governing island carried on as normal.

Andy Huang, a restaurateur in Taipei, said he has become desensitized to military threats from the mainland.

“I’ve been hearing about China invading for 30 years,” he said.

Taiwan’s government is racing to counter China, buying nearly $19 billion in military equipment from the United States, and extending military conscription for men to a year starting in 2024. But many on the island say they don’t feel the threat.

That may be partly due to the nuanced views many Taiwanese hold of China. While polls indicate most people on the island reject reunification, many say they are attracted to their much larger neighbour’s dynamic economy, and its shared language and culture. Others are simply numb to hearing about the threat in their backyard.

Beijing claims Taiwan as its own territory, and its actions in recent years have led some to fear it is preparing to use force to try to take control of the island. Taiwan has been compared to Ukraine by American lawmakers and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.

The island’s politicians have not been shy about sounding the alarm. “In order to keep the peace, we need to strengthen ourselves,” Ms. Tsai said last month at a war memorial commemorating the last time Taiwan and China battled.

Members of the public don’t feel that urgency.

Coco Wang is one of the many people who feel a connection to China without considering themselves Chinese. Her grandparents came to Taiwan among people fleeing the 1949 Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, which left rival governments ruling the mainland and Taiwan. Her grandparents kept in touch with relatives in China, and she remembers summers traveling through the country’s rural areas with her parents.

She considers herself Taiwanese, but worked in Shanghai for a year before the pandemic and is thinking of going back.

The opportunities in China are so much bigger, she said. “There’s this feeling that if you just go in and you really work at it, then you can really achieve something,” she said.

China is Taiwan’s largest trading partner, receiving 39% of the island’s exports in 2022 despite new trade barriers imposed amid rising tensions.

While Ms. Wang feels drawn to China, she acknowledged that it is not entirely possible to leave politics at the door when working there. Colleagues in Shanghai occasionally called her a “Taiwanese separatist.”

She knew they meant it as a joke, but it made her uncomfortable. To herself, she thought: “We are already independent. Taiwan is just Taiwan.”

Her viewpoint is widely shared.

Since polling began in the 1990s, majorities on Taiwan have said they favor the status quo, rejecting both proposals for unification with the mainland and a formal declaration of independence that could mean war.

But a closely watched poll question that asks people whether they consider themselves Chinese has shown the island’s population growing further from the mainland, said Ching-hsin Yu, the head of National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center. When polling began in 1992, over two-thirds of respondents said they were both Chinese and Taiwanese, or just Chinese. Today, close to two-thirds say they are just Taiwanese, while around 30% identify as both.

Those attitudes don’t translate directly into views on relations with the mainland, Mr. Yu said, but among the majority who identify as Taiwanese there has been a subtle shift toward favouring the status quo for now, but with “eventual independence.”

Mr. Huang, the restaurant owner, said he was taught in school that he was Chinese, but as an adult came to consider himself just Taiwanese.

His restaurant in Taipei, which specializes in Taiwanese cuisine, has a “Lennon Wall” dedicated to the now-banned Hong Kong democracy movement, decorated with hundreds of Post-It notes with messages from patrons.

Mr. Huang shut down in solidarity with protesters during Taiwan’s Sunflower movement in 2014, when tens of thousands demonstrated against a trade deal with China. He says the Chinese population is “brainwashed.”

Personally, he wants independence now, but he also said he can wait until more of Taiwan’s public is convinced.

Nor does he think much about war, he said. “Whether they attack or not, that’s for China’s leaders to decide; it’s pointless for us to worry,” said Mr. Huang.

For others, like Chen Shih-wei, cultural and emotional ties to China are very strong. Mr. Chen’s family immigrated to Taiwan during the Ming dynasty, which ended in 1644, and he considers himself both Chinese and Taiwanese.

“I’m Chinese and I’m Taiwanese. This can’t be separated,” he said. “We’ve read the history, including the clan records, and we are clear that we came from the mainland, and came from people who had landed in Taiwan, and grew up here.”

Mr. Chen, who is from Taichung in central Taiwan, travelled to China many times as a young athlete, starting in 1990. On the mainland, he said, he encountered more similarities than differences. Mr. Chen is pro-reunification, but doesn’t believe it will happen in his lifetime.

Mr. Chen now lives in Matsu, a group of Taiwanese-held islands that are closer to China than the island of Taiwan. He said he is somewhat worried about the prospect of conflict. “This is not what the public on both sides want to see,” he said.

No one sees an easy way out of the accumulated antagonism of the past several years, whether military, diplomatic or economic.

But Ms. Wang said the tensions are between the two governments, not between people.

“Taiwanese and mainlanders are largely friendly to each other. Why is it like this?” she said.

File photo of a Taiwanese soldier holding a Taiwan national flag during the annual Han Kuang military exercises.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Biden administration has approved the first-ever U.S. military transfer to Taiwan under a program generally reserved for assistance to sovereign, independent states.

The State Department notified Congress of the sale on Wednesday. It said the material would “be used to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities through joint and combined defense capability and enhanced maritime domain awareness and maritime security capability.”

The package is modest — only $80 million of what Congress had set aside as a potential $2 billion — but the implications of using the so-called Foreign Military Financing program to provide it will likely infuriate China.

Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, has repeatedly not ruled out the use of force to reunite it with the mainland and vociferously protests all U.S. arms sales to the self-governing island.

However, previous arms sales to Taiwan have been approved under other authorities that do not necessarily imply statehood. U.S. officials were quick to say that the provision of FMF funding to Taiwan did not represent a change in policy. It’s a position the Chinese are sure to disagree with.

The only other time the U.S. has provided a non-nation-state with military assistance under FMF was to the African Union, an organization of sovereign states based in Ethiopia, according to American officials.

The notification, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, did not specify what military equipment or systems would be paid for under FMF, which commits U.S. taxpayer dollars to pay for the supply of materiel to foreign countries.

But, it said items that could be covered would include: air and coastal defense systems, armored vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, drones, ballistic missile and cyber defenses, and advanced communications equipment. It added that protective gear, an array of small, medium and heavy weapons systems, ammunition, armored and infantry fighting vehicles could also be included.

In addition to equipment, FMF may also be used to support training for Taiwanese military forces.